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imaginespazzi · 1 year ago

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Here's To Eternity

Four times Paige brings up marriage and the one time Azzi finally says yes.

(In which an angst writer attempts to write fluff and it takes her far longer than it should have)

Pairing: Paige Bueckers X Azzi Fudd

Themes: mainly Fluff with a little bit of Angst

Words: 8K (I swear it was meant to be below 5K when I planned it)

TW: Implied sexual content, alcohol, swearing

A/N: Hello my lovelies <3. Gonna do this at the beginning instead of the end today. This took years off my life and I still don't fully love it but I'm tired of thinking about it so hopefully y'all still like it. Really quickly, I've never been to Minnesota or the state fair so if you have, pretend you do not see the likely factual inaccuracies. Also feel free to let me know what you don't like because as I've said, I don't really write fluff well so by all means call me out. And finally, I edited this I swear but I'm sure there are still mistakes, so let me know about those too. Anyways, I hope this is a good pre-game read and let's get another W!

i don’t know what love is (i’d learn for you)

The first time Paige says it, they’re at the Minnesota State Fair. It’s all the way back when they’re just two young girls learning each other, carefree and completely unaware that this will become a tradition. They’ve barely known each other but being with Azzi already feels easy, natural, like home. And she doesn’t really know how she knows it, it’s just a feeling really, but Paige is convinced that Azzi’s meant to be in her life forever.

They’ve been at the fair almost all day, with members of both of their families joining them here and there. Paige and Azzi had been competing at various arcade games all day, keeping a tally of who won which arcade game. They’d even turned going on rides into a competition of “who could hold in their screams the longest”. Their bickering, while endearing, had earned them more than a few fond eye rolls as their families eventually got bored of being third wheels and went on to find something more engaging.

They’d intentionally left the pop-a-shot, a basketball arcade game, til the very end, knowing it would be the ideal tie-breaker. And as the day comes to an end, they are in fact very much tied although Paige will tell you, that she didn’t actually scream on the Skyscraper; it had merely been a quiet whimper that Azzi was exaggerating the volume of. And Azzi will tell you that she deserved a re-do on the ring toss because it wasn’t her fault that the wind had decided to pick up on that very moment. Ultimately both of their arguments had fallen on deaf ears when they had appealed their cases to some very exasperated family members.

“Get ready to lose to the better shooter,” Paige gloats, rubbing her hands together in preparation to shoot. She’d lost two rounds of rock paper scissors to Azzi’s one, meaning she’d missed the chance to go second like she would have preferred but that hadn’t done much to deter her confidence.

“We’ll see,” Azzi scoffs, rolling her eyes and crossing her arms as she stands back a little bit to give Paige the space she needs.

Paige smirks at her friend as she shoots the ball, definitely showing off a little bit. The ball arcs in the air before swishing into the basket, all net and no rim. The blonde’s grin only widens as she repeats the motion, again and again and again. She gets eight of them in perfectly, the ninth hits the backboard but rolls in and then-

“You missed,” Azzi yells the minute the last ball is out of Paige’s hands and they both watch, one in excitement, the other in irritation, as the ball falls miserably far away from the net.

“That’s not fair,” Paige turns around immediately, “you distracted me. That doesn’t even count.”

“Nuh uh, we didn’t set a no distracting rule and I only said something after you released it. I already knew you were gonna miss,” Azzi counters gleefully.

“Bruh, how could you have possibly known that?”

“Because my basketball IQ is way beyond yours,” it’s Azzi’s turn to smirk as she bumps Paige in the hip, switching spots so she can take her turn.

“You’re still gonna lose. I made nine, you’re barely gonna make,” Paige pretends to think, “hmm maybe seven”

Azzi doesn’t respond, choosing instead to reply by immediately making her first basket. Her arc is perfect as always, the same shot Paige had been awed by when they’d been at camp for USA basketball. She makes the next and the next and the one after that until she’s at her 10th shot, ready to go a perfect 10 for 10 and beat Paige. Maybe it’s the competitiveness or maybe Paige has lost her goddamn mind, but she barely registers the next words that come out of her mouth.

“If you make the last shot, you have to marry me,” and it’s supposed to be a threat, a way to stop Azzi from making the last bucket and winning their silly little competition but it comes out giddy and breathless.

“What?” Azzi asks, eyes wide as she turns around to face Paige and well, she’s said them now, Paige might as well own them.

“You heard me,” Paige says, cocking her head, the arrogance in her voice a complete contrast to the rapid beating of her heart, “you make that shot, and we’re engaged. Or you don’t make it and you lose.”

Azzi’s eyes narrow, confusion melting away to a familiar fierceness. The thing is, she knows she could miss it if she wanted to but the thought of losing is somehow worse than being engaged at fourteen. She tries not to dwell on why that idea doesn’t seriously frighten her, telling herself it’s because there’s no way Paige will ever hold her to that. Taking a deep breath, Azzi lifts up her hands and shoots the ball.

Here’s the thing, Paige likes winning. She enjoys the effort that goes into getting a win and the satisfaction that follows after. But as the ball leaves Azzi’s hand, that same perfect arc, she thinks, maybe it would be okay if Azzi made this basket today. She thinks maybe it would be okay if she lost. Both girls wait with bated breath, as the ball hits the backboard and circles the rim. For a brief second, it seems like it might slide off the edge but it doesn’t. It falls into the net with a swish and Azzi wins.

The brunette lets out a squeal of happiness as the arcade game lights up with “WINNER”, doing a happy dance and flipping her hair. And Paige is so mesmerized by Azzi’s infectious happiness, the fact that she’s just lost ceases to mean anything. She doesn’t know what this feeling is, isn’t quite ready to understand it, but she knows it’s slowly creeping up her veins and consuming every part of her.

“What prize would you like honey,” the middle-aged woman running the booth asks, pointing to the assortment of gifts sitting in a booth next to the game. Azzi pulls a still-stunned Paige with her to get a closer look at the prizes, eyes roaming over all the fun things until they finally settle on one of them.

“I’ll take that packet of rings,” she gives Paige a devilish smirk, "I think I just got engaged.”

Paige gapes at Azzi while the woman fetches the packet of rings that Azzi had chosen. As far as fake jewelry goes, the rings are kind of atrocious. Huge colorful stones are placed haphazardly on a silver ring that looks like it might rust the next seconds. Azzi picks out a pink one and hands it to Paige, before holding out her hand. Still slightly dazed by everything, Paige does as she’s gestured to and slips the ring onto Azzi’s ring finger. And she’s sure she must be going insane because the ugly ring looks quite pretty on Azzi’s slender fingers.

“You better get me a real one eventually,” Azzi says and she’s joking, Paige knows that but she can’t help the part of her that takes it at face value, the part of her that subconsciously promises Azzi to get her a real one eventually. She’s only fifteen and she’s sure she doesn’t know what love is but standing here in the cool Minnesota summer breeze, getting fake engaged to a girl she feels like she’s known her whole life, Paige thinks, maybe she’d like to learn.

2. crossing boundaries (taking leaps of faith)

The second time Paige says it, they’ve crossed a line in their friendship and she kind of wants to cross a couple more. By this point, Paige is pretty sure she’s at least a little in love with her best friend. It had been okay when she’d first got to UConn, the distance between them allowing Paige to ignore her feelings that had become unbearably intense over the covid year she’d spent with the Fudds. And then the thing she’d worked her ass off to make happen had happened and Azzi had come to UConn. It wasn’t that she wasn’t happy to have Azzi here. With her being injured for most of her sophomore season, there’s no one else Paige would have rather had by her side through it all. It was the playing platonic that drove her a little insane. Because somewhere between the arguing over nothing and the talking about everything, Azzi had stopped being her best friend and had become something more.

It all comes to a head during a mid-April night at Ted’s. They’re partially still in mourning for their national championship loss and so it’s not really a surprise that the team is perhaps a little freer with the alcohol than they normally are. It’s definitely the alcohol that has Paige seething in jealousy at Azzi nonchalantly flirting with some random girl who had had the nerve to buy the brunette a drink. And it’s definitely the alcohol that makes her march over angrily and squeeze herself between the two girls. But it might be a little much to blame the half a glass of spiked shirley Paige had had for the way she wraps her arms around Azzi’s waist, leaning into the younger girl’s personal space in a way that is decidedly not platonic.

“Hi love,” she whispers, blinking her eyes up at a rather confused Azzi, who despite said confusion, doesn’t push her away. Instead, Azzi’s arms circle around Paige’s neck. It’s muscle memory really. But now they’re far closer than appropriate for two best friends and Paige swears she can make out every detail on Azzi’s face. Her eyes fixate on Azzi’s throat as the darker-skinned girl swallows, a sign of nervous anticipation, and she fights the visceral urge to bite down on Azzi’s neck and leave a mark so permanent, no other girl would ever have the audacity to look at what’s hers.

“Oh, I didn’t know,” she hears the offending flirt say.

“Well now you do,” Paige replies before Azzi can respond, keeping her eyes focused on the girl in front of her, “she’s not interested.”

The sound of feet scurrying away makes Paige smirk. Azzi raises her eyes but doesn’t make a move to pull away.

“You looked like you needed help,” the blond lies blatantly, “and I’m nothing if not helpful.”

“Is that what you were doing? Trying to be helpful?” Azzi asks, a coy smile playing on her lips as she presses closer to Paige, “because I could have sworn you were jealous.”

Paige’s breath hitches as she focuses on the way Azzi says those words, the way her lips quirk and her eyes sparkle, because it’s not the alcohol this time, no she’s pretty damn sure Azzi’s flirting with her. The realization sets her heart ablaze and she grips Azzi’s waist even tighter, trying to find something stable to hold onto.

“And if- if I was- if I was jealous, then what?”

“I’d tell you, you didn’t really have a reason to be. She wasn’t really my type.”

“Yeah,” Paige can’t help but smirk, suddenly feeling a surge of confidence, “what is your type Azzi?”

Azzi hums, her shy smile a response in itself. They’re so close now, with their chests pressed up against each other, that Paige can hear the erratic thrum of Azzi’s heart beating. It’s comforting in a way, to know that she has the effect on Azzi too, that she’s the reason Azzi’s breathing is so uneven. Subconsciously, Paige leans in, eyes tracing the outline of Azzi’s lips, her entire body wracked with want.

“Azzi,” she whispers, knocking her forehead against the other girl’s, “tell me to stop.”

Anticipation burns against Paige’s skin, the feeling of finally racing through her body. She’s hypnotized by the way they seem to be breathing as one. Her eyes close of their own accord and she can almost feel the taste of Azzi’s lips when the brunette presses a gentle hand against her chest.

“Stop,” Azzi whispers.

Paige’s eyes fly open. Stung, she lets go of Azzi’s waist immediately, the tears ready to fall. She’d been so sure she’d read the moment right-

“Hey, hey no Paige wait,” Azzi scrambles to grab onto the blonde, fully aware of the panic that has settled into the other girl's bones, “I didn’t- I just- I didn’t mean it like that. I- fuck sorry, I don’t- I want-” she takes in a deep breath, her brain unable to speak her mind, “I want to kiss you, I do- I just don’t want our first kiss to be in front of all these people.”

The last part is a little mumbled but Paige hears it clear as day. She gapes at her best friend, not sure if she wants to shake her or jump her bones (both, definitely both).

“You couldn’t have just said that?” Paige asks exasperatedly, “I don’t really take rejection well in case you haven’t noticed.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I panicked, you were so close and I was distracted,” Azzi rambles incoherently and Paige is so ridiculously endeared by this girl.

“Azzi,” she says slowly, stepping back into the younger girl's space, and holding out a hand, “you wanna get out of here?”

She’s rewarded with a bright smile and Azzi grabbing her outstretched hand with no hesitation. As the two of them make their way through the crowd, hands locked together, Paige can’t think of a moment where she’s felt this ecstatic. They stumble through the street towards their apartments, giggling like kindergarteners who’ve just been given a sweet treat. After a year, longer, of holding it in, Paige feels like she’s finally free.

They’ve barely made it to Paige’s room, before she has Azzi pinned against the wall causing the younger girl to let out an audible gasp. It’s sinful the way she looks up at Paige, as if she’d do anything for her. And god Paige wants to find out just how much she can push that.

“Tell me to stop,” Paige repeats her words from the bar, her right thumb coming up to lightly caressing Azzi’s bottom lip. She’s giving her an out, a last chance before they cross a line in their friendship that they’ll never be able to uncross. But her words evoke a new fire in Azzi’s eyes and Paige just knows.

“Absolutely not.”

She’s not sure who kisses who first, doesn’t really care but she knows she’s never felt anything quite like this. It’s something beyond sparks, something more exciting, yet something ever so calming. All she knows is she wants more. Her hands roam everywhere, moving from Azzi’s neck, to her arms, to her hips before moving even lower. And Azzi fucking whimpers, the sound of it causing Paige to press even harder against her. She pulls away and Azzi chases her lips for a second, before Paige attaches them to the younger girl’s neck instead.

“Do you know how long I’ve wanted this,” Paige manages to get out, biting against Azzi’s skin. She means to be soft, she really does but all she can think about is leaving a mark, a possessive bruise that would make sure everyone knew not to touch what was hers.

“Not longer than me,” Azzi’s hands are tangled in Paige's hair and she’s putty in the older girl’s hand. Paige could ask anything of her, and Azzi’s sure, she’d give it to her in a heartbeat.

“I’m gonna make it worth the wait,” Paige pants, moving away from the brunette’s neck to kiss her again, “I promise.”

“Gonna show me what the hype is about?” Azzi says cheekily, as Paige pulls her onto the bed. She climbs on top of the blond, straddling her thighs.

“Gonna show you even better,” Paige whispers and Azzi shivers at the promise in her voice. And then Paige’s lips her on hers again, desperate and impatient. Her hands work meticulously as she unbuttons Azzi’s blouse, leaving the young girl’s upper body bare. Azzi can't help the insecurity that creeps into her when Paige stares at her like that, like she’s seeing her for the first time.

“You’re so fucking perfect,” Paige says, erasing away the doubt, “fuck, marry me.”

Paige doesn’t know why that slips out, doesn’t know why it rolls off her tongue so smoothly, doesn’t know why it doesn’t feel like a completely preposterous thing to say at the moment.

“You say that to all your hookups?” Azzi asks slowly. It’s said light-heartedly enough but the hints of doubt aren’t hard to catch. In one swift motion, Paige flips them so that Azzi’s lying underneath her. Using her elbows, she hovers over the younger girl, making sure she can see the sincerity in her eyes.

“No, no I don't. And you,” she says pointedly, needing Azzi to understand how she feels, “are not a hookup.”

Azzi smiles, arms wrapping around Paige’s neck, “maybe take me out on a date first and then we can talk about marriage.”

“Yeah, yeah I will but,” Paige grins devilishly, fingers dancing around the waistband of Azzi’s jeans, “I think I’ll fuck you first.

3. on the brink of destruction (maybe you’ll catch me)

The third time Paige says it, she’s desperately trying to save them from falling apart. They’ve always known this moment would come, known it even before they’d known each other. To play in the WNBA had always been the end-goal for both of them and it should be the happiest moment of their lives with both of them being guaranteed first-round picks who were likely to make a roster. But the whole thing comes with the caveat, that for the first time in almost four years, Paige and Azzi will have to learn to live apart from each other.

Paige hadn’t even considered that it would mean they’d have to break up. The whole season, despite a thousand and one conversations about the draft, the idea hadn’t once been brought up. Long distance would be difficult, Paige knew that, but she’d figured they’d tackle it in the same way they’d faced everything else: together. Apparently Azzi thought differently. Apparently Azzi had been thinking about it for a while and last night, when she’d finally said the words out loud, Paige’s whole world had fallen off balance. She’d tried interrupting but once Azzi had her mind set on something, it was hard to deter her.

It’s been less than 24 hours since and KK and Ice have done everything in their power to distract her but Paige can’t stop thinking about it. If she hadn’t known Azzi for as long as she had, then maybe she would have believed the façade of coldness and practicality that her girlfriend had put on. She had spoken as if she was negotiating the end of a contract, her face set firmly on neutral. But Paige had seen the way she was fidgeting uncontrollably with the hem of her shirt, heard the little crack in her voice when she’d said the actual words out loud.

“Was she at breakfast?” Paige asks, interrupting whatever spiel KK had been going on. The sophomore gives her a look that veers between irritation and sympathy.

“Dude, we weren’t even at breakfast. We ate with you up here, remember?”

“Right,” Paige says, mindlessly thumbing at her sheets. She’s in unfamiliar territory, trying to navigate a world without Azzi. She can’t even remember the last morning she’d had that didn’t start with some form of communication with her girlfriend, a good morning kiss or a text or a call.

“Y’all are being stupid,” Ice supplies unhelpfully.

“Don’t even start,” Paige quips back defensively, “I didn’t do anything.”

“Maybe that’s the issue,” KK’s report is met with a well-aimed pillow in her direction.

“Can you guys maybe just take my side for once please?”

“Children of divorce don’t choose sides,” Ice says solemnly. She has the foresight to duck and Paige’s water bottle hits the wall with a resounding thud, “aye no violence.”

“Fuck off and go away,” Paige groans, burying her face in her hands.

“This is literally my room,” Ice replies and KK snickers.

“I’m so glad my misery amuses you guys.”

Before either of the two underclassmen can reply, a familiar voice resounds around the room and Paige’s heart almost beats out of her chest. It’s been less than 24 hours but fuck, she’s missed the sound of it.

“Ice do you have- oh.”

“Hi Azzi,” KK says enthusiastically and Paige can already picture the forced smile Azzi gives her. She hates that stupid smile.

“Hey KK. I- uh, Ice I was looking for the necklace you borrowed. I- uh wanted to wear it with my dress for the draft, but umm- it’s- it’s fine. I’ll come back later.”

Paige scoffs, suddenly annoyed. She lifts her head from her hands and Azzi’s already looking at her but the minute their eyes meet, she looks away. It only irritates Paige further.

“It’s fine Az. I can get it for you now,” Ice says, hopping up and rummaging through one of her.

“No it’s fine, I should go. I have to go do…something.”

“You’re such a fucking liar,” Paige says before she can stop herself. The awkwardness in the air changes to a sinister tension. KK and Ice wear identical expressions of shock and worry, looking back and forth between Paige and Azzi.

“Excuse me?” Azzi says eyes narrowing dangerously.

“All that bullshit you said last night. You said we’d still be friends. You said it’d be like we used to be before. You said things wouldn’t change that much and this would be for the better. You said we’d be fine. But fucking hell Azzi, you can’t even stand to be in the same room as me right now,” tears prickle in her eyes and she can’t tell if they’re from anger or pain or frustration.

“I-It will be okay. We’ll be fine, eventually,” Azzi pauses, struggling to get the words out, “I just- we just- we need time to learn how to be just friends again.”

“I don’t want to be just friends Azzi,” Paige spits.

“Neither do I,” Azzi bursts out, hands clenching, “but we have to try.”

“Oh-kay,” KK cuts in, noticing the rise in voices, “just because Ice and I call ourselves children of divorce, doesn’t mean y’all have to act like an actual divorced couple. All this yelling is not good for my heart.”

“Shut up KK,” they snap at the same time, and KK immediately raises her hands in surrender.

“Why,” Paige turns her attention back to Azzi, “why do we have to try? You don’t want to be just friends. I sure as shit don’t want to be just friends. So what’s the fucking point? When neither of us want this, why are we fucking doing this?”

“Because I’m scared okay?” Azzi yells, her eyes widening as the truth slips out. She immediately cups her mouth, her anger fading away. Tears pool at the corner of her eyes, as emotions she’d been trying so hard to push down, bubble to the surface. She sees the way Paige eyes soften, can feel the sympathy in the way KK and Ice are looking at her, but before any of them can say anything, her feet are moving, desperate to get away from them, from Paige.

“Paige,” Ice hisses when the blond stays rooted in place, “move.”

It does the trick, shaking Paige out of her trance. She doesn’t need to be told twice. When she gets to Azzi’s room, she stops outside the door. The goal is to fix things but she’s so scared of damaging them further. Taking a deep breath, she lets herself in and is unsurprised to find Azzi pacing the length of the room.

“You have ‘got to stop running away from me. I’m not as young as I used to be,” Paige jokes. She’s not expecting a smile in return, the situation is far too tense, but when Azzi looks at her with nothing but sadness, all the humour leaves her body.

“Please leave me alone,” Azzi whispers, “please don’t make this harder than it needs to be.”

“You’re the one making this harder Az. We don’t have to do this,” Paige takes a step forward, groaning when Azzi immediately takes a step back.

“We do because otherwise we’re gonna fall apart. You don’t see it but we’re gonna end up resenting each other because we miss each other so much,” Azzi says miserably, the tears freely falling now.

“You think I’ll miss you less if you’re not my girlfriend? You think breaking up is going to stop us from falling apart?” Paige asks incredulously, “you know you’ve had some stupid ideas before Azzi, but this, this one might be the dumbest yet.”

“Well, do you have a better one?” Azzi asks, throwing her hands in the air.

“Yes, let’s just get married instead! Then we’ll have to be stuck with each other for life and you can stop trying to break up with me,” and maybe it’s somewhat of an irrational thing to say but Paige finds that she means it.

“Paige,” Azzi grits out, “this is serious.”

“I’m being dead serious right now actually.”

“Marriage is not going to stop us from being drafted to different teams. It’s not gonna stop us from having to live in different states.”

“Neither is breaking up,” Paige yells. Frustrated, she marches over to Azzi, encircling her arms around the other girl who immediately struggles against Paige's hold but the blonde is in no mood to let this, whatever it is, go on any further.

“Let me go-”

“No. It’s my turn to talk okay,” Paige says, tightening her grip, “get this through your head, we are not breaking up.”

She pinches Azzi’s waist when the younger girl tries to protest. Her girlfriend is nothing if not stubborn but so is Paige.

“You know I barely slept last night? I’ve been so fucking miserable all day. I’ve spent every minute thinking about you, every minute missing you. And if we do this, that feeling of missing you and knowing I can’t have you, is how I’m going to feel for the rest of my life. And that, that might kill me. I know you think it’ll be easier being friends or whatever but I can’t do that Azzi. I can’t be your friend. I can’t be near you and not kiss you. I can’t call you and not tell you I love you,” Paige’s voice breaks near the end as tears begin to stream down her face.

“I’m scared. I’m so scared. I don’t want to lose you,” Azzi confesses in a whisper and it’s heartbreaking how vulnerable the darker-skinned girl sounds.

“Then don’t. Keep me and let me keep you. I know you're scared baby but,” Paige presses her forehead against Azzi’s, “but trust me Azzi, we’ll make it work okay. I need you to believe that. I need you to believe in us. Please Azzi, please.”

Azzi closes her eyes and Paige can almost see the cogs turning in her brain. Waiting for a decision is excruciating and the silence feels deafening as Paige’s intrusive thoughts drive her a little insane.

“Okay,” Azzi breathes out finally, “okay we’ll try it your way. But if it doesn’t work-”

“It’s going to work,” Paige says determinedly. And finally, Azzi smiles, the real one that Paige loves.

“It’s going to work,” she repeats back, leaning up to kiss Paige and letting out an ungraceful squawk when Paige dodges her lips, “excuse me.”

“You don’t get a kiss,” the older girl replies, moving out of reach and crossing her arms, “you just tried to break up with me. Twice.”

“I’m sorry,” Azzi whines, “please, I haven’t kissed you for hours.”

“And whose fault is that?” Paige accuses but there’s no true anger behind her words.

Azzi pouts for a second before it’s replaced by a mischievous smirk. Before Paige can react, she jumps onto the blond, wrapping her arms around Paige’s neck. The impact of it causes Paige to stumble back a little bit before her hands settle on Azzi's hips to keep them both stable.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” Azzi babbles, kissing every inch of Paige’s face.

“Okay, okay, okay, you’re forgiven.” Paige laughs. She’s never been particularly good at staying mad at Azzi. The knot in her chest, which’s been pressing against her ribcage since last night, finally unravels as Paige tugs Azzi closer, finally pressing their lips together in a passionate kiss. A low wolf-whistle from the doorway breaks them apart far sooner than they’d have liked.

“Y’all didn’t even last a whole 24 hours,” KK’s voice is amused but there’s a hint of relief hidden in it.

“Should’ve closed the fucking door,” Paige grumbles as Azzi giggles into the crevice between her head and her neck.

“That’s gotta be a record for shortest breakup ever or something,” and there’s Ice, looking equally as amused.

“You know what that means though, parents are back together and,” KK smirks at Ice and Paige looks between the two of them questioningly, “you owe me 50 bucks.”

“Excuse me?” Paige asks with a raised eyebrow, although she’s pretty sure she already knows.

“Ice said y’all would be broken up for a week. I gave y’all three days,” KK grins triumphantly, despite Ice giving her a dirty look.

“I can’t believe you guys would bet on us,” Azzi shakes her head disapprovingly as she lifts her head, “actually no scratch that. I’m not surprised at all.”

“We were too generous with it though,” Ice gives them a knowing look, “can’t believe y’all thought you could survive for years.”

“Not y’all,” Paige corrects, “just Azzi.”

Azzi groans, “you’re never gonna let me forget this are you?”

“Nope,” Paige says happily, pressing a kiss to Azzi’s temple, who immediately grins. And everything in the world is right again. It’s not going to be easy being god knows how many miles apart, but Paige knows they’ll be fine. They have to be. She won’t let them be anything else.

4. the high of it all (as long as you hold me)

The fourth time she says it, Paige doesn’t even fully remember it the day after. She won’t find out exactly what she’s said until a couple of years into the future when Azzi tells her the story with a fond look in her eye. It’s a month or so into their rookie seasons when their respective teams meet: the Lynx vs the Mystics, funny how that had worked out. So far, they’d both been doing well, locked in a competitive race for rookie of the year. As a result, their matchup is well-hyped, but no one’s more excited for it, than the two of them.

The game ends with the Lynx winning and Paige shoots Azzi a victorious smirk which earns her a familiar eye roll. She loves winning always but this time there’s the additional reward of having her girlfriend back in her bed for the first time in weeks. The anticipation of it has her running her tongue across her lips, and with the way Azzi’s eyes glaze over, it’s clear they’re thinking the same thing.

A couple of hours later, the Lynx team is spread out across one of the bars near their arena and Paige is definitely teetering on the edge of being drunk. She’d been a lot more reserved the other couple of times they’d done this, not wanting to take the chance of potentially embarrassing herself in front of her older teammates. But she feels freer tonight and the reason for it hasn't walked in yet.

“You two haven’t changed at all huh?” Dorka laughs, as she watches Paige pouting at the door.

“Hey,” Paige whines, “I haven’t seen her in months! And now she’s taking too long.”

“One month,” Dorka corrects, shaking her head fondly, “and you talk to her every other hour.”

“Same differ-”

“Hi,” an unfamiliar voice cuts Paige off, an auburn haired girl sliding into the stool next to her, “you’re Paige Bueckers?”

“Last time I checked,” Paige replies goofily, eyes still fixed on the front door.

“I’m Shay. I’m a huge fan,” the stranger gushes, her smile radiant, “could I maybe get a picture?”

Never one to disappoint, especially not when she’s a little out of it, Paige nods. She wraps her arm casually around Shay’s shoulder, and makes a peace sign with her other hand as the other girl takes a selfie.

“Thank you,” Shay takes a deep breath, “I uh, I was wondering if I could maybe get your num-”

“Babyyyyyy,” Paige lets out a shrill squeak as she spots her girlfriend finally entering the door. All else seems to fade away as the blonde practically skips towards her girlfriend. Dorka, who’d been watching the previous exchange, can’t help but give a very shell-shocked-looking Shay a sympathetic smile.

“Hi babyyyy,” Paige croons again as she throws her arms around her girlfriend's neck, burying her face contentedly into Azzi’s neck. It doesn’t matter that she’s an inch or so taller than the younger girl, she fits in Azzi’s arms pretty perfectly.

“Hi drunkie,” Azzi says fondly, brushing her hands through Paige’s hair and eliciting a happy sigh from the inebriated blond in her arms, “started without me I see.”

“You took too long and I was bored,” Paige says, snuggling further, her breath tickling against Azzi’s collarbone, making the younger girl’s breath hitch. Smirking, Paige bites down gently, knowing the exact effect it’ll have. Almost five years together, and the idea of marking her girlfriend still drives her a little insane.

“Behave,” Azzi warns, her voice breathy, “we’re in public.”

“Then let’s get out of public,” Paige whispers as she caresses the mark she’s just left on Azzi’s throat with her tongue, clearly proud of her handiwork, “let me take you home.”

“I just got here babe,” it’s a weak response, they both know it.

“So what?”

“I-,” Azzi stutters as Paige continues to pepper kisses into her neck, one of her hands sliding down to brush against Azzi’s exposed navel, “I haven’t even said hi to anyone else.”

“Are you here for anyone else? Or are you here for me?”

It’s a blur how it happens, but one minute Paige is tucked under Azzi’s arms, the next Azzi finds herself pressed against the bar, Paige's hands barricading her. It's too dimly lit for anyone to be fully aware of what’s going on but Azzi desperately tries to stifle a moan when Paige shifts so that she’s filthily grinding against one of Azzi’s thighs, lips still attached to her neck.

“Gonna make you feel so good baby. Gonna give you whatever you want. Gonna give you everything you need,” the blond promises, knowing, when Azzi’s eyes involuntarily close, that she’s close to getting what she wants, “just let me take you home.”

“Azzi!” The feeling of getting her way is short lived as Dorka’s voice echoes around them. Paige groans as her girlfriend’s eyes immediately fly open and she ducks under Paige arms to hug their old UConn teammate.

As the two other girls meet, Paige downs another drink, mumbling about “fucking Hungarians.”

“Ignore her,” Azzi rolls her eyes, still hugging Dorka, who lets out a laugh.

“Alright that’s enough,” Paige frowns, pulling Azzi back into her so that her back is pressed against Paige’s chest, “go find your own Azzi to hug, this one’s mine and we’re leaving.”

Sober Paige does not get testy when Azzi hugs other people, especially not old teammates and friends, well not a lot anyway. But drunk Paige doesn’t like sharing her girlfriend, no matter how platonically that is.

“Always so possessive Bueckers,” Dorka teases, but she complies “it was good seeing you Az. Don’t be late to practice Paige.”

The blond point guard lets out a satisfied sigh, lacing her hands with Azzi’s, “see you’ve met people, now can we please go?”

“I’ve met one person,” Azzi rolls her eyes but doesn’t put up a fight as her girlfriend begins to pull her out of the bar.

The uber ride back to Paige’s apartment is relatively silent with Paige tucking herself into Azzi, who can tell that despite her previous eagerness, her girlfriend is pretty likely to pass out the minute she lies down. It doesn’t matter really. Cuddles. Sex. Whatever. As long as it’s with Paige, Azzi loves every minute of it. Besides, there’s always tomorrow morning.

“M’sorry, m’so tired,” Paige mumbles as she does exactly what Azzi had expected by flopping onto the bed the minute they tumble into the bedroom, “make it up to you tomorrow. I promise.”

The brunette shakes her head with a smile, taking both their shoes off, before lying down next to her girlfriend, who immediately curls into her, wrapping her arms around Azzi’s torso.

“I’m glad you’re here. I missed you,” she whispers into Azzi’s skin, eyes closed.

“Missed you too baby,” the darker skinned girl pressed a kiss onto her girlfriend’s forehead, squeezing her arm gently.

There’s a pause and for a second Azzi thinks maybe Paige has fallen asleep until the next words come out her mouth and steal Azzi’s breath away.

“I can’t wait to marry you,” Paige confesses in a whisper, “you’re gonna make the prettiest bride. We’re gonna have such a beautiful wedding. Outside. Maybe on a basketball court. And Coach is gonna officiate it and everyone’s gonna be there. Our family, our friends and it’s gonna be wonderful. The best ever.”

Azzi can’t bring herself to speak, the emotions suddenly becoming a little too strong. She knows Paige is drunk but the words are so sincere, like they’re things Paige has been thinking about for a long time.

“Gonna have two kids,” Paige smiles as she continues to babble, unaware of the effect that has on Azzi, “a girl and a boy. They’re gonna be the most loved kids in the world. And we’re gonna teach them basketball. And they’re gonna be perfect, just like you. Just like us.”

In the silence, Azzi listens to Paige’s breathing even out, a sign that the older girl has drifted into sleep. And she lets herself imagine the picture Paige had just painted for her. As she holds her girlfriend closer to her, she knows she wants that life too. The wedding. The kids. The perfection of it all. She falls asleep dreaming about it, unaware that hidden in the drawer right next to her, is a ring that has her name on it.

5. finding forever (the inevitability of us)

When Paige finally proposes, they’re back at the Minnesota State Fair. She’s had the ring for a couple of years now, waiting for things to fall into place so that they could finally play on the same team and actually be together. That hadn’t been an easy process and of course, they’d argued about it, perhaps going a little too far at times. But now, when she finally gets to wake up to Azzi’s peaceful sleepy smile, every single morning, it all seems worth it.

The proposal, if Paige is honest, is just a formality. In her head, she’s been a married woman for a long time. Whatever ceremony they’d have, whatever papers they’d sign, wouldn’t do much to alter their already domestic lives. But she wanted that celebration, the moment with her family and friends where they’d become bound in the one way they weren’t yet: legally. And this proposal was the start of that.

The list of ideas she’d planned out and discussed with their family and friends was long and had earned her plenty of sighs and eye rolls. Nothing had seemed quite right until she’d whined about it to both their mothers. They’d said to go back to the beginning and it had all clicked into place.

As they have every year since they’d started coming to the state fair together, they’re engaged in a competition again. Every year, they get a little bit more competitive and every year their families' sighs get a little heavier. Something about it, makes the two of them reverse back to being fifteen. The ridiculous trash talk, the sticking their tongues out at each other, the exaggerated pouting when they lose, it’s all further proof of them still being children at heart. Except now, when Azzi pouts, Paige gets to kiss it off.

They’re tied again this summer, as they seem to be most years. Though this year, there’s been a little bit of planning on Paige’s part.

“Pop-a-shot it is,” Azzi sighs, “even though you absolutely cheated on that last hole in mini golf,” she turns to their families, who normally would have left by now but have stayed back today, with a dramatic spin, “and I can’t believe you all saw it, but you’re taking her side.”

“Not me Azzi, I’m on your side. I know she cheated,” Drew, the traitor, chirps with a smirk and Paige glares at her little brother whose loyalty to her girlfriend never wavers.

“Thank you Drew. The only person who loves me for real,” Azzi puts one hand to her heart, and ruffles the younger boy’s with the other.

“Save the dramatics for when you lose babe,” Paige says, rolling her eyes, “alright rock paper scissors.”

They play best of three as they always do. Paige wins the first round. Azzi wins the second. There’s momentary panic when Azzi technically wins the third because well, Paige sort of needs to be in control if this is going to work. The thing is Azzi likes to mix up whether she’ll choose to go first or second, according to her it keeps Paige on her toes. But today Paige really needs her girlfriend to go second.

“Oh Az no cheating,” Tim cuts in, coming to the rescue, “you waited to see what she’d do.”

“WHAT?” Azzi squeals, “I absolutely did not.”

“Oh honey, I think you did,” Katie sends Paige a wink and she can’t help but smile at the family she’s found.

“You’re not serious,” Azzi says with a betrayed voice, squinting at her parents, before turning to Paige’s mom, who gives her a consoling pat, “please adopt me.”

“Oh quit whining cheater,” Paige teases, “I’m going first.”

She steps up to the line for the game, feeling more nervous than she ever has really because this is it. There isn’t really a world in which she thinks Azzi will say no, at least not one where Paige continues breathing after. But she needs this to be perfect. Bouncing the ball for a second, she takes in a deep breath before raising her arms and shooting. It goes in, barely touching the room. So does the next. And the next one and the next one, until Paige has gotten nine shots in.

As she goes to shoot the last one, Azzi's voice echoes around her, “miss it for me babe.”

And she does. It’s probably one of the weakest shot’s she’s ever taken in her life, the ball falling far below the basket. Behind her, she can hear their brother’s snickering.

“Damn someone should send that to Coach,” Azzi teases, hip-checking Paige as she comes to take her spot, “better luck next time baby.”

“Yeah, yeah let’s see you do better,” Paige replies cockily, but her hands are sweating with nerves.

“Oh you know I will,” her girlfriend responds with a grin, as she makes the first basket, that same perfect arc as always. Paige holds her breath on every shot, as the ball goes in flawlessly every time, their families cheering loudly for each one of them. As the last basket gets closer, Drew gives Paige’s hand a tight squeeze and gets a grateful smile in return.

Taking a deep breath, as Azzi gets ready to take her last turn, Paige repeats the same words she’d said, the first time they’d been in this situation, “if you make the last shot, you have to marry me.”

“What?” Azzi whips around immediately, her eyes bright with confusion. Tongue-tied, Paige only shrugs and smiles, watching closely as Azzi lets the words sink in. A determined look crosses her face, followed by a mischievous smirk, and Paige’s heart swells. She knows the ball is going in the hoop even before the other girl's arms are in shooting position. And she’s right. The ball arcs in air and falls through the basket. And instead of the patent WINNER that normally lights up when someone makes the 10 shots, a new phrase appears on the dashboard.

MARRY ME

Azzi gasps, hands flying to her mouth. When she whirls around, Paige is already on one knee and their families are watching with the biggest smiles.

“I knew you lost on purpose,” Azzi breathes out, “you’ve never taken such a shit shot like that last one in your life.”

“Seriously,” Paige gapes up at her, “that’s what you get from this.”

“Babe, you hate losing,” Azzi emphasizes as if that explains everything and well, maybe it does.

“Yeah, yeah I do,” Paige nods, reaching in her back pocket to pull out the ring, “but if you say yes to me today, then it doesn’t matter if I win or lose in a stupid arcade game, or on the court or anywhere, if you say yes Azzi, no matter what, I’ll always be a winner because I’ll have you. And I had a slightly better, slightly longer speech planned but it’s kinda all gone from my mind now, so I’ll just get right to it,” she manages a watery smile in response to her girlfriend’s tearful laugh, “Azzi, my soulmate and the love of my life, will you marry me?”

“Yes. Oh my god yes, of course, yes,” Azzi manages to get out, before she falls to her knees and into Paige’s arms, pressing her lips fervently against the blonde’s, their happy tears mixing into each other. Behind them, their families burst into cheers, hugging one another in congratulations.

“Wait, wait,” Paige pulls away, her smile stretching across her whole face, “I need to put the ring on you.”

She opens the ring box, to reveal a silver band that’s designed with a large diamond in the shape of a heart in the middle with two infinity shapes made out of smaller diamonds on each side of the heart. Azzi holds out her hand, eyes shining as Paige slips it onto her ring finger. It sparkles underneath the glow of the moonlight.

“You finally got me a real one,” she whispers, continuing to admire the ring, “fuck, Paige it’s beautiful.”

“Yeah, yeah it took me a couple of years but I always knew I would. Look at the inside,” Paige nudges and Azzi squints to see the inscription on the inner edge of the ring.

Since Always

The meaning of it is clear and Azzi lets out something in between a sob and a laugh before throwing herself back into Paige’s waiting arms.

“I love you,” she whispers into her girlfriend’s, no, her fiance’s ears, “I can’t wait to be your wife.”

Paige’s arms tighten around Azz as she repeats it back, the word wife, evoking a newfound feeling she doesn’t quite know how to put in words. Their families begin to crowd them, until they’re all just a heap of bodies, likely earning some odd looks from passers-by. But it really doesn’t matter. It’s odd to think there had ever been a time when Paige had stood in this same cool Minnesota summer evening breeze and not know what love was, not known who Azzi was. Because this right here, with her fiancé in her arms, and their family all around them, this, she thinks, is the definition of love.

#pazzi #paige bueckers #azzi fudd #wcbb

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archduchessofnowhere · 6 months ago

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We talk about portrayals of Sisi, but I think that Franz Joseph was, if anything, even more misrepresented by the recent period dramas. How would you rank the portrayals of him you have seen/read (in historical novels)? Is there any piece of historical fiction that actually captures his character accurately?

Hello! YES I always focus on Elisabeth but he is also completely butchered in all these new series. I think I've said it before, but basically it's very hard to reconcile who FJ actually was (both as an emperor and as a person) with him being a love interest we as an audience can root for. Specially in these new adaptations in which Elisabeth is outspoken, mature and actively politically involved in the events of the empire (and not just the Compromise). Why would our Girl Boss protagonist want to be with a man who was bureaucracy made flesh, very conservative, and just kinda boring in general? It doesn't work. Thus, his personality also gets rewritten.

I don't really have a decided ranking, but off the top of my head I'd say these are my least to most favorite portrayals:

Sisi & Ich (2023): Do you hate Sisi adaptations that turn FJ into a horrible, abusive husband in order to make his wife look good? Well, this portrayal does just that. He is only very briefly in the movie but I hated every minute of it, personally I was mostly fine with the movie despite all its inaccuracies but there was one scene from this part that was a deal breaker for me. This movie should've been just two hours of Irma and Elisabeth traveling and nothing else.

Die Kaiserin (2022-): The solution of the screenwriters to the problem of "how do we make FJ likeable?" Basically turning him into his brother Maximilian lol. You see, he has liberal ideas but his evil mother doesn't let him pursue them! Oh, and he had nothing to do with those executions, that was also his mother! In fact everything bad he ever did was all his mother's fault, because he is not even governing, his mother is. By season 2 it almost seems that FJ has absolutely no idea what's going on in his own empire and needs to be explained basic thing like Italian nationalism. This series sanitizes FJ in levels that just aren't seen in any other adaptation, not even the Sissi Trilogy. You are watching the show and can't help but think "who is this guy???". The only thing he has in common with the real FJ is that he loves his wife, but the way their relationship is portrayed is so unlike the real couple that not even that makes him similar to his historical counterpart.

Sisi (2021-2024). This FJ is in the opposite end of the same spectrum as Die Kaiserin's FJ. Season 1 had the original take of not making FJ likeable, but instead they turned him in a borderline cartoonishly evil, violent and smug man. He smiles as he orders executions, he beats his aids for not reason, he openly cheats on his wife and publicly insults her in a fit of jealousy. Honestly I was baffled by this take, because even after all these bizarre changes they still went for a "Sisi and Franz's great love story!" approach for the series. Which was. A choice. They obviously wanted to make him like that so that he could go through a redemption arc thanks to his relationship with Sisi, but it was just not a well written arc, and when his personality does change in later seasons it doesn't feel like earned character grow but simply that the writers decided to tone down their original approach.

Yet I will admit I'm lowkey fond of this portrayal, I liked most of his storyline in season 2 (he spends most of the season bonding with a feral child and also definitely has a thing going on with Andrássy you can't convince me otherwise), and in season 3 I found myself agreeing with him. So yeah, utterly butchered FJ but in an entertaining way at least.

Sissi Trilogy: I'm honestly overall indifferent to this FJ; he is basically the blueprint for every posterior depiction that portrays him as a Prince Charming love interest. Yet, for all the overomantization of Elisabeth's early life, the movies don't shy away from telling us how FJ was directly responsible of the counter revolution executions. We even see how he is still hated in Hungary and Italy (at least until Sissi comes into the scene). A certain show from a certain straming service could learn that it's not necessary to completely sanitize his image and pin all his faults onto his mother to make Franz Josef into a palatable love interest.

Sisi (2009). I feel about this FJ almost the same as I feel about the Sissi Trilogy's FJ, but in this portrayal we do see more of him than just "Sisi's love interest". Also it's not always all the color of roses, he and Elisabeth disagree and fight more than once. His relationship with his brother Max is also really interesting, pity they only interact in like three scenes. Overall a solid take, if a bit romanticized and not particularly remarkable.

Kronprinz Rudolf (2006). Not a bad take but for what I remember they portrayed Taaffe as having this great influence over FJ and putting him against Rudolf. And like no the evil minister was not responsible for FJ distrusting his son He Was Like That.

Elisabeth das Musical: the only depiction on this list that I truly like, and it really proves that the only way to have a good FJ is to not make him into a love interest. He is only a supporting character and yet the musical nails the most important bits of his personality and his relationship with Elisabeth outstandingly well (loved his wife but never understood her, cheated yet still longed for her, let her go but always hoped she would comeback next to him). There's even room to also show his relationship with Rudolfl! The only thing that I don't really like is that they do portray his mother as having a lot of influence over him, but that's mostly because the musical has an outdated take on Sophie (which works pretty well in a storytelling level nonetheless!). Boote in der Nacht is the saddest song in the entire musical, and the musical is not even about FJ and Elisabeth as a couple. Just a great, nuanced and engaging take!

I know I'm missing a lot FJs but these are the ones that came to my mind right now; I don't think I've ever seen Franz Josef in a piece of media that isn't about Elisabeth or Rudolf. Thank you for your question!

#asks #franz josef i of austria #sisi (2009)#sisi (2021)#elisabeth das musical #kronprinz rudolf (2006)#sissi trilogy #die kaiserin (2022)#sisi & ich (2023)

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transient-winds · 9 months ago

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Holy fuck, what a ride.

Spoilers for Wind Breaker Chapter 156 ahead.

Gosh. Where do I even begin?

First off, the "Umemiya is a selfish bastard" thing from Endo earlier on is rattling around my brain as even more ridiculous after the intro to this chapter (it was already absurd the first time he said it). Umemiya, for some reason, is taking responsibility...for not winning against Takiishi pre-Bofurin which led to their current situation?? Ume, hun, what. It's literally not your fault Takiishi is obsessed with you ong. He just wanted that soft cottagecore lifestyle for his hometown and love ones! No wonder the weight Umemiya carries on his shoulders gets unbelievable heavier if this is what and how he thinks.

Even after all the destruction and chaos brought to his beloved home and to the people he loves and who love him back, he still wants to get to know Takiishi. Umemiya, your ideologies and beliefs, let me pick your brain king.

The way Umemiya monologues about Takiishi is soft yet firm. Kind of like a scolding? Or a lecture. It's softer than what would be a common reaction to someone who's hurt their people and home. While Takiishi is still a mystery, Ume definitely knows that his fights against Takiishi mean a lot for him and especially this one. A "I'm humoring your wants rn but I'm doing this my way" if you will.

Special shoutout to table-kun who has joined chair-kun at the grounds of Furin! Thank you for your services. 🫡 (Still lowkey wondering how the others are doing and how they're reacting to the small glimpses they see of the fight from below)

These senpai want to be cool and reliable in front of their kohai. UmeHira, my beloveds.

ALSO THE RAIN! I don't know why but I got so excited when it started raining. The chapter title for today is "Overheat", so the rain could be symbolic of the overall fight coming to an end. A sign to cool down if you will. Come to think of it, what time do you think this chapter is currently at right now? Since it just started at midnight (and Takiishi's bday ig). It would be so fucking cool if by the end of this arc, there'll be a page with the first rays of morning light shining across Makochi and onto the rooftop. Oh, it would be so pretty and fitting narratively (& symbolically). Like the light has triumped over the shadows. I ALREADY HAVE AN IMAGE IN MY BRAIN FOR IT SKSK (this is setting me up for failure if there isn't a scene like this in the next chapters).

And I'm sobbing because the acknowledgement? The praise and confidence in Sakura's will? The foretelling? THE NEXT LEADER OF BOFURIN Y'ALL *wails and ugly sobs*

THE FLINCH. THE SHUDDER. TAKIISHI IS FEELING IT RN. I MEAN I WOULD TOO IF THAT GAZE WAS ON ME.

"Hey Takiishi, let's have along talk, yeah?"

Fucking 👏 phenomenal 👏 delivery 👏👏 (and page art, nii-sensei never misses)

I think this is it guys, I think Ume finally won against Takiishi.

–

As always, Nii-sensei did such a wonderful job playing with my emotions this chapter and the lines hit so fucking well thanks to the translations of Jacqueline Fung (praise be to these two and the rest of the staff behind the official English release). Support the official release and all that over on KManga Kodansha (who should open the site up internationally, please). And thank you for reading my yapping 'til the end!

#wbk chatter #wind breaker #wind breaker spoilers #wind breaker chapter 156 #umemiya hajime #sakura haruka #takiishi chika #i held back in staring at ume for too long #i failed clearly

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thegayhimbo · 4 months ago

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Stranger Things (1x07): “The Bathtub” Review

The more I think about it, the more I enjoy penultimate episodes in most TV shows. It’s the episode where the pacing and the plot kick into high gear as it becomes a mad dash for the finish. It’s also where many of the previous side-plots are wrapped up and the story becomes more focused as the characters finally get on the same page.

If I were to pick my favorite episode from season 1, it’s a tie between this one and “The Upside Down.” In fact, I’ve always liked the last 2 episodes in each season because, aside from being suspenseful and thrilling, it’s where all of the characters meet up and finally work together as a team. Everyone has their own individual roles, but they’re all important in helping to defeat the threat they are facing. It’s also where we get to see the culmination of character development that’s been building up for most of the season, which finally pays off here.

Part 1: Lucas

Knowing about the Montauk Pitch and how they originally planned to write Lucas makes me appreciate the changes they made to his character (similar to what they did to Steve). For context, this was the first outline for Lucas when the show was conceived:

I’m sure the Duffer Brothers had an arc planned for Lucas similar to what they did in the final product, but I honestly question how much more backlash Lucas would have gotten if they had gone the “angry and destructive” route with his character. I know for a fact Lucas was controversial in the fandom when season 1 first aired, and there were people who ripped him (and by extension, Caleb McLaughlin) to shreds for Lucas’s initial behavior towards El. Even to this day, I still see certain fans (who are a small but vocal minority) who hold it against Lucas and refuse to ever let him live it down (even though he apologized to El and never betrayed her or did anything to endanger the Party), similar to how certain fans refuse to let go of how Steve acted in season 1 or accept that he’s grown as a character since then. Put a pin in this because I will be talking about this kind of pettiness and how it reflects badly on the fandom later in the review.

In Lucas’s case, given the way the fandom reacted at the time towards his character, I know the fallout would have been worse if they had gone with the Montauk version of Lucas: The Lucas who’s a loudmouth, is angry all the time, and making choices that would put the other members of the Party in danger. Doubly so since Lucas is a person of color and we already know Caleb McLaughlin was already on the receiving end of fandom racism despite the Stranger Things version of Lucas being more toned-down compared to his Montauk counterpart. This fandom really isn’t as progressive as it wants to believe it is. 😒

I said this in my last review, but for all his flaws, Lucas is loyal to a fault. He wasn’t happy with El, or with Mike’s decision to include El in the Party, but that never meant he was going to betray Mike or El, especially if it put any chance of finding Will in jeopardy. Whatever anger he had two episodes ago over what happened in the junkyard, he channeled it into locating Will while allowing Mike and Dustin to do their own thing. I can’t quite speak for how the Montauk version of Lucas would’ve played out, but given how the outline talks about how “his attitude would land his friends in danger more than once and put his friendship with Mike to the test,” that puts the version of that character’s loyalty into question, and makes me wonder how bad things would’ve gotten between Lucas and Mike for Mike to consider ending his friendship with him. Even the argument in the junkyard wasn’t bad enough to be a deal-breaker in terms of these two never speaking to each other again.

There’s also the question of what Lucas would’ve done to put the entire Party in danger, and how much of that would have been deliberate on his part vs how much of it was tied towards his attitude making things unnecessarily difficult. Would this have been rooted in understandable circumstances and motivations on Lucas's part, or would this have been the kind of self-centeredness that would make Lucas unintentionally unsympathetic? Like I said, fandoms are notoriously unforgiving if a character fucks up in a major way. Even if the Montauk version of Lucas realized the error of his ways, if the damage he intentionally or unintentionally perpetrated was significant enough to cause severe problems and hardships for the other characters, it wouldn’t have been enough to save him from the fandom bashing him to the moon and back.

I wonder if the Duffer Brothers realized this as they were drafting Lucas, and proceeded to rework his character as a result. It’s telling they changed the relationship between his parents. Rather than being in the middle of a bitter divorce, Charles and Sue Sinclair are a loving couple who come from similar backgrounds (as detailed in Lucas on the Line and The First Shadow) and worked to protect their kids while also giving them a stable upbringing. Given the number of broken families and parents on this show who are either neglectful, abusive, or emotionally absent from their kids’ lives, I don’t mind the change. It doesn’t deter from the character development that both Lucas and Erica go through over the course of the show.

Speaking of which, let’s talk about Lucas’s growth in this episode.

Lucas started out the show having preconceived notions towards El. Part of it comes from his age (12 isn’t exactly the pinnacle of maturity), part of it comes from the circumstances with how he first meets El (i.e. she appears within 24 hours of Will vanishing, and she’s acting in a way he considers abnormal), part of it is from Mike’s newfound interest in El and how she disrupts the initial dynamic of the Party, and part of it is based on uncertainty about whether El is trustworthy. There is understandable context regarding how he views El, even if his initial behavior towards her wasn’t okay. Add in his worry over what’s happened to Will, and his disagreements with Mike over how the Party should move forward, and it begins to shape his perspective on things to the point he splits off.

But then he gets to Hawkins Lab (or the fence surrounding it) and sees the military gearing up to go after Mike, El, and Dustin, and it hits him that (aside from Dustin pointing out that splitting the Party is always a bad idea) whatever problems he may have had with El or Mike and Dustin were not worth losing them over. Disagreements mean jack-shit over the possibility of death, and considering that Mike warned him about “the bad men” and what they were capable of, it brings Lucas’s priorities into focus. He may not be able to get into the Lab right now to save Will, but he can save Mike, El, and Dustin and prevent their deaths.

Then we have the chase and El flipping the van to prevent Brenner’s men from coming after them, and Lucas realizing that El does care about their safety. Even her screwing up the compasses was about preventing them from walking into a dangerous situation that would’ve gotten them instantly killed. It isn’t even about El’s powers (which Lucas has known about for several episodes now); it’s about realizing El truly sees them as friends and would do anything to protect them.

All of this enables Lucas to realize he was wrong in his initial treatment of El, which allows him to apologize.

And El even extends that grace towards him. She gets why he was upset, and why he acted the way he did, and it’s telling she doesn’t hold it against him.

What’s nice about this is not only does it reinforce that, when push comes to shove, Lucas will be there for his friends (which we’ll also see again in season 4 during the Jason arc), but his character development continues on into the next season when Max is introduced and Lucas is the one making an effort to include her in the Party.

Part 2: Steve

I’ve previously said that rewatches are good for picking up aspects that you miss the first time viewing, and nowhere do I think that’s best exemplified than with Steve’s arc in season 1.

I’ve noted over past reviews how Steve was beginning to lose patience with Tommy and Carol and their nasty, mean-spirited behavior. I’ve seen people speculate on why Steve stuck with them as long as they did, and it likely had to do with Tommy and Carol knowing Steve for a number of years. People will argue about how Steve should have cut ties with them sooner, but this is a thing that happens in real life: There are people who have friends (or in some cases, family members) that they’ve known for a while, and while those people might have questionable traits, they overlook them for the sake of their relationship. The little excuses like “Oh, they didn’t really mean it” or “Oh, they have an off-color sense of humor but they’re not really hurting anyone” or “Oh, it’s just a phase they’re going through and they’ll eventually get over it.” Stuff like that.

But somewhere down the line, these people take a turn for the worst, and those questionable qualities become a major problem that need to be addressed. When that happens, there are usually one of two outcomes when that person is confronted with their behavior: Either they realize they’ve taken things too far, apologize, promise to do better in the future, and work to improve as a person. Or they refuse to accept responsibility, make excuses, and double-down. When the latter happens, there are only two choices: Either try to maintain the relationship as it deteriorates, or walk away.

I’m remind of how, over the past decade, I’ve heard so many stories from people who had friends or relatives who voted for Trump, where they initially kept quiet for the sake of their relationship, but eventually were forced to confront their friends or relatives because they wouldn’t stop posting bigoted conspiratorial shit on their social media platform, or kept regurgitating disinformation that had been proven false, or were acting in a way that wasn’t okay. Some of those people got the message and changed their behavior, but there are those who didn’t and continued on with what they’d been doing. Same thing goes for those who fell down the QAnon pipeline and became so deeply radicalized in a way their behavior became inappropriate and (in some cases) criminal.

This isn’t just exclusive to the Right. I have seen (and even have receipts) of Leftists who’ve gone so far off the deep end in perpetrating misinformation/disinformation, bullying/harassing people who don’t get on board with their takes, attacking others under the guise that they did something to deserve it (all while maintaining they’re in the right to act like this because they are morally good people), promoting harmful conspiracy theories (some of these rooted in antisemitism or Russian propaganda), and doubling down on the kind of bigotry they claim to be against, that I’ve just started blocking them because no amount of talking to them and trying to get them to understand how harmful their behavior is will work. Some of these people were even former mutuals I’ve cut ties with and will never speak to again.

In the case of Tommy and Carol, their issues isn’t radicalization (we will see that with Jason’s character in season 4), but the fact that they have their heads so far up their own asses that they don’t recognize (or care) how awful their behavior has become. Barbara likely was onto something when she told Nancy about how Tommy and Carol have been fucking since seventh grade, with the implication being that these two have been navel-gazing with each other for so long that it has calcified them into becoming self-absorbed and callous. There may have been a point in time where their friendship with Steve was genuine, but that’s pretty much gone at this point, which Steve is forced to realize. The fact neither Tommy nor Carol make any attempt after this episode to reconcile with Steve speaks volumes, and not in a way that reflects well on them.

This is why I find it puzzling when Steve-Antis come out claiming that Steve’s sudden change-of-heart makes no sense. It absolutely does for several reasons. For one thing, Steve was forced to recognize how little these two actually cared about him, and how they were just using him (and by extension, his relationship with Nancy) for their own amusement. His anger with Tommy and Carol in the parking lot makes perfect sense not just from a writing perspective, but from a real-life perspective as well: He’s sick of their behavior. He has reached his limit with them. He just nuked a relationship with Nancy that he genuinely cared about, is feeling remorseful over how he acted (especially now that the full gravity of what he did has hit him), and he’s now stuck with two inauthentic and nasty people who are just going to continue acting the way they always have without making any effort to change.

Simply put: That’s not the kind of person he wants to be, and he's disgusted with himself for falling into that.

My mom pointed this out to me when we were rewatching the previous episode, but Steve’s initial behavior goes beyond just simply being angry with Nancy: He’s angry with himself. He’s angry because he feels vulnerable and taken advantage of, not just by what he thinks Nancy did, but by Tommy and Carol as well. I mentioned in my previous review that there’s an ugly implication that Tommy and Carol would’ve ripped Steve to shreds for showing any kind of sensitivity (which they perceive as weakness), and the fact that Steve just saw what he believed was Nancy cheating on him with Jonathan shattered Steve and made him feel like the biggest fool on the planet. And in the heat of the moment, he wrecks the entire relationship to avoid getting hurt further. Spoilers: It didn’t make things better.

It’s telling that Steve isn’t gleefully participating in the spray-painting when Nancy confronts him, but just looks deeply disgusted and unhappy to even be there. I wonder if in that moment, it finally hit him how much of an idiot he truly was in telling Tommy and Carol what he saw at Nancy’s window.

For Tommy, Carol, and Nicole, the slut-shaming was done for their amusement, and it was their opportunity to be nasty and claim to have the moral high ground (something I see A LOT of Tumblr and Reddit users doing these days 😒). There’s nothing genuine about their behavior here. They could not care less about how Steve feels about this, and it doesn’t surprise me that Steve’s disgust towards them got projected onto Nancy and Jonathan since he thinks they’re also using him as the fool to be laughed at.

That’s why I buy this scene in the parking lot with Steve finally snapping at Tommy and Carol (as pictured above): Once the fight was over and he finally had the chance to calm down and think things through (while being forced to listen to Tommy and Carol’s consistent snide jabs), he realized how low he had sunk as a person. Compared to Tommy and Carol (or even Billy and Angela), Steve doesn’t get any sadistic delight in being cruel to others. Furthermore, when Steve had time to contemplate, he recognized that not only did Nancy NOT deserve what he did (regardless of whether or not she cheated on him) but that Nancy had always been genuine about caring for others (which we even see in the previous episode when she was begging Jonathan to stop attacking Steve in the alley), and it occurs to Steve that he never actually gave Nancy a fair chance to explain herself before he jumped to conclusions. Same thing with Jonathan: Steve has the bruises and the blood to show that Jonathan’s rage over daring to trash-talk Will was authentic, and it’s not a coincidence that when Tommy and Carol once again bring up the idea that Jonathan killed Will, Steve tells them to shut-up. He recognizes he hurt Jonathan (similar to how he hurt Nancy), that Jonathan’s anger is genuine, and it hits him that what he said was nasty and he feels awful about it (as anyone with a conscious would). And like any person with any kind of decency, he wants to try and makes this right however he can.

Another detail I want to point out here is this moment when Tommy grabs Steve in a threatening manner:

I know there’s the common joke about Steve frequently getting manhandled (a joke I’ve been guilty of making once or twice), or even this questionable idea that Tommy has a crush on Steve (which is something Chester Rushing, the actor who plays Tommy, has jumped on board with), but given the release of the Eddie Munson prequel Flight of Icarus, which showcases Tommy’s bullying of the Hellfire Club and how physical it got, it paints this scene (and by extension, Tommy and Steve’s entire relationship) in a much more disturbing context. I used to think Tommy was simply just an ass-kisser who’d drop you in a heartbeat for the next popular person if it suited him, but that book (which was written by Caitlin Schneiderhan, one of the writers for the show), combined with this scene, makes me question if this is the first time Tommy’s physically threatened Steve like this, or if there have been other instances of abusive behavior from Tommy towards Steve. Not that it excuses how Steve acted beforehand, but it makes me wonder how much control Tommy exerted over Steve during their relationship.

In any case, it makes it understandable why Steve just left and didn’t take Tommy’s bait to fight him. He knew nothing good was going to come out of that.

In regards to Steve cleaning the spray-paint off the theater, I think it’s noteworthy how blatantly obvious it is to the theater worker there that Steve had something to do with this. While he isn’t remotely impressed, he doesn’t shame Steve for it. Instead, he extends the grace of allowing Steve to clean it up and lets it be. It’s a small thing, but it makes a big difference in Steve being able to fix the damage he’s caused and actually strive to be a better person. As I’m about to point out in the next part of this review, I don’t have a lot of patience anymore for people who continue to hold the sins of those who are genuinely remorseful and trying to be better over their heads. Call their behavior pettiness or self-righteousness or adherence to purity culture, but that kind of attitude of refusing to give credit when someone is trying to do better is NOT impressive to me.

The movie Nancy and Steve were originally going to see, All the Right Moves, has a story that somewhat parallels Steve’s arc during the show. The movie stars Tom Cruise as a high school football player for the Ampipe Bulldogs named Stefen "Stef" Djordjevic, who’s looking to get out of the small Pennsylvania town he’s in via a college football scholarship so he can study to become an engineer. After a particularly bad football game where his team loses, he gets into a heated argument with his football coach that results in him getting kicked off the team and forced to find a ride home since the coach won’t allow Stef back on the bus. After having one too many drinks, and still pissed at his coach, Stef gets roped into coming to the coach’s house by disgruntled Ampipe fans, who blame the coach for their loss and take it out on him by vandalizing his home. The most Stef does during this scene is toss a bag of garbage on the lawn, but he doesn’t take it further than that. Stef gets increasingly disturbed by how far the vandals take their actions, from spraypainting vile phrases on the coach’s house, to slashing the tires to their car, to even hanging a dead rooster by the front door. The vandals flee when the coach becomes aware of their presence, but he spots Stef during this, which not only wrecks any chance at reconciliation between Stef and his coach, but results in the coach blackballing Stef out of fury over what happened.

Just like with Steve at the theater, Stef’s actions were stupid and done in a moment of anger that he later came to regret. These weren’t two people getting malicious delight in their cruelty (unlike Tommy, Carol, and Nicole, or the vandals at the coach’s house). The movie explores the aftermath of the incident, with Stef having to deal with the consequences (even though he was far from the only participant in that event, and didn’t take it to the extent the other vandals did), as well reckon with how his behavior has wrecked things with the people he cares about. The movie’s overall question centers on whether Stef deserves the extent of his punishment, and the answer seems to lie in the middle: He certainly needed a major attitude adjustment (something his girlfriend, Lisa, calls him out on), but there comes a point where his punishment seems less about teaching him a lesson and more rooted in pettiness on the coach’s part (which is something the coach is eventually called out for as well).

In Steve’s case, even though his actions at the theater aren't excusable, I feel bad for him the same way I feel bad for Stef in the movie: Aside from the fact that both boys are remorseful while bearing the full consequences of what they did (whereas those who also participated in that debauchery weren’t remotely remorseful about it and walked away scot-free, with not even a slap on the wrist), I’m someone who dislikes the idea of a person paying for their sins for the rest of their lives when it’s clear they are remorseful about it, all while never getting a break or being able to move past what happened. Stef is eventually able to in the movie, and there is a reconciliation that happens. Steve on the other hand…………..while there’s no doubt he’s undergone massive character development since this point, there’s a debate to be had if the show (and by extension, the fandom) is ever going to let go of Steve’s past sins, or if they’ll continue to hold it over his head.

And this brings me to a point I’ve wanted to talk about for a long time………..

Part 3: Stan Culture and Fandom Pettiness

This part is semi-related to Steve’s redemption arc, but it also deals with my personal perspective about fandoms in general, why I’ve distanced myself from the Stranger Things fandom over the years, and how all of this inform how I write these reviews.

Five years ago (during 2020 when Covid-19 was rampant and we were all in isolation), I was an active user on Reddit, and most of my posts and comments were related to shows I was invested in. Fandoms were a new thing for me at the time. I had been aware of them for a while, but hadn’t really participated in them prior to that. For reasons I’m not going to get into now, I decided I wanted to be active in fandoms around that time. One of those fandoms was Stranger Things.

Anyways, during a conversation about Steve’s redemption, there was this particularly unpleasant Jonathan Byers/Charlie Heaton Stan who was ripping into how Steve’s redemption arc constituted “bad writing” and how no person ever changes like that. Because I was new to the fandom (and was ignorant about how some fans read things in bad-faith and do NOT want to hear opinions that contradict their own), I made the mistake of replying to this person by explaining why I thought Steve’s redemption worked from a writing perspective and why I liked his character. I got a reply from this person within minutes, who first insisted that they didn’t hate Steve (which is seriously questionable for reasons I’ll go into in a minute), but then proceeded to snidely claim that the only reason Steve was on the show was because the Duffer Brothers liked Joe Keery, with the nasty insinuation this somehow derailed the entire show and the quality of the writing. They then proceeded to rip into him for the camera-breaking incident, and the slut-shaming at the theater (which they had already been talking about in several other comments to various people that they’d interacted with). They then took a very condescending “holier-than-thou” tone with me (the same kind of attitude I remember getting projected onto me when I was growing up in the LDS church as a participating Mormon, which was one of many reasons I finally left and haven’t been back since) while they proceeded to tell me how they didn’t give credit for Steve breaking it off with Tommy and Carol, or for him cleaning up the theater (contemptuously insisting “that was the least of what he needed to do”), or for coming to Jonathan’s house to apologize, or for coming to the aid of Jonathan and Nancy against the Demogorgon. There was also this bizarre fixation on taking the scene with Steve coming to Nancy’s window completely out-of-context to paint him as a creep who had the intention of forcing himself on Nancy (or at the very least, pressuring her into having sex with him). I would later find out from their Tumblr account (which has the same user name as their Reddit account) that they’ve gone out of their way to misconstrue certain things Steve said or did during the show to paint him as a manipulative controlling boyfriend to Nancy. They then proceeded to reiterate that Steve’s redemption was bad writing, and that no one changes like that, and that they couldn’t understand what prompted Steve to realize how much of an asshole he’d been, all while completely ignoring anything I’d said in my previous comment.

Even at the time of this conversation, I remember being extremely put-off by this. It wouldn’t be until later when I fully processed not only how petty this person was being, but how there was A LOT of hostile projection towards Steve’s character. In any case, I responded back reiterating why I believed Steve’s redemption and what prompted it, as well as pointing out that the window scene was meant to be a homage to Glen Lantz and Nancy Thompson’s dynamic from A Nightmare on Elm Street, with Nancy’s character being directly inspired by Nancy Thompson from that movie (as noted in the companion book Worlds Turned Upside Down), as well as Glen serving as inspiration for Steve’s character and costume design. I even pointed out that, for as much as they claimed not to hate Steve, the negative way they talked about him indicated to me they didn’t like him, and my opinion about Steve remained unchanged. They did NOT take this well, and proceeded to immediately downvote me. I could already tell a nasty reply was coming from them (this wasn’t the first time I dared to disagree with someone on Reddit who couldn’t let it slide and proceeded to rip into me for not accepting their opinions as gospel), and I automatically edited my comment to tell them if they were going to act like this, I wasn’t going to continue the conversation, and blocked them. I don’t know if they ever replied back. I don’t care either.

The reason I bring this incident up isn’t because it changed the way I felt about Steve’s character or his redemption (if anything, I still think he’s a great character and his redemption arc is well-written). It also wasn’t the worst conversation I ever had on that platform. Not even in the Top 10. I have so many other horror stories regarding vile, disgusting behavior from Reddit users, and how genuinely cruel and callous people can be on that platform.

No, the reason I bring it up at all is because it’s one of many encounters that forced me to not only see the uglier side of the Stranger Things fandom, but also marked the beginning of the end for my interest in being a part of ANY fandom.

Aside from shipping wars, I know for a fact that Stan Culture and Hatedoms are two of the most toxic, poisonous aspects of fandoms that kill any desire to interact with fans, and make fandoms in general a miserable place to be. I am well-aware of the behavior people like this exhibit, which involves myopic levels of thinking, putting the characters they like on a pedestal while getting offended at the idea of anyone criticizing them, and turning a blind eye to said character’s faults. Meanwhile, if it’s a character they hate, it’s open season on them. Suddenly, everything that character has ever said or done is interpreted in the most cynical, bad-faith manner possible to portray them as “irredeemable” or the scum of the earth. Anything regarding that character that can’t be put in that category automatically falls into blaming the writers for screwing up.

As someone once put it: “Everything I like about the story or character is fine, but everything I don’t agree with is ‘bad writing.’” If that sounds childish and petulant, that’s EXACTLY how I feel about it as well. This is basically 90% of posts and conversations on Reddit when it comes to fandoms. Reddit breeds an extremely toxic culture where the subreddits become echo chambers that beat the same points to death, and the upvote/downvote system works to shame people who don’t follow the status quo.

I joked about this a while back, but I remember what happened after the last of season of Game of Thrones aired, and that fanbase was badly split to the point the subreddits reflected it: Either you had u/freefolk, which was usually for shitposting and tearing apart every aspect of the show because people were THAT ANGRY about the last season and how Daenerys’s character was assassinated, or you had u/naath, which took the opposite approach of “Game of Thrones Season 8 was Practically Perfect in every way and you’re too stupid to realize it” while bashing Daenerys and interpreting every single thing she ever said or did in the worst manner possible to make her out to be a monster similar to Sauron from LOTR or real life dictators like Hitler and Stalin. This mentality even went to the extent of making rape and slavery apologies as long as these fans could made Daenerys look bad. I am not kidding about that. I remember seeing those posts with my jaw dropping and wondering what the hell was wrong with these people. Of course, if another user confronted anyone on u/naath about how they hated Daenerys’s character, they would deny this and start waxing poetic about how they believed Daenerys was a complex tragic character…………….and then proceed to go back to bashing the shit out of her once they were done talking with that person.

In regards to my encounter with the Jonathan Byers/Charlie Heaton Stan……….I truly don’t care if they hate Steve’s character. They are entitled to that position, even if I disagree with it. However, if you’re sitting there trying to tell me that you don’t hate a character while proceeding to rip into them and take snipes at every single aspect (and I mean Every. Single. Aspect.) related to them……..that tells me you are either lacking in self-awareness, or you’re being disingenuous. Either way, after years of constantly seeing people behave like this, I don’t have a lot of patience for that kind of bullshit.

What’s almost comical is that even after Steve and Nancy had broken up and Jancy took off (with Steve bowing out gracefully at the end of season 2), this person still couldn’t stop themselves from trying to poke holes in Steve’s storyline. Keep in mind that when I encountered this particular stan, it was AFTER season 3 aired and BEFORE season 4 premiered. Season 3 was where Nancy and Jonathan were a couple, and Steve had NOTHING to do with their relationship (or their storyline) at that point. Yet here they were trying to poke holes in Steve’s Scoops Ahoy arc. For whatever reason, they weren’t willing to let bygones be bygones, or even accept the idea that a fan can like Steve as a character while also shipping Jonathan and Nancy, and those two concepts are NOT mutually exclusive.

As for the claims of Steve’s redemption being bad writing…………if Steve had been written like his Montauk Counterpart where he raped Nancy, was unapologetic about it, proceeded to slut-shame her after the fact, and then spontaneously had a redemption in the last two episodes out of nowhere (with none of the subtext or foreshadowing regarding Steve’s positive aspects that season 1 had), I could understand that criticism. However, that’s not what happened here. They did NOT write Steve on the show the way they did in the Montauk script (which should be noted was a rough draft and NOT the final product). Steve had his negative qualities (as did every other character on this show, including Jonathan) but he was also given subtle redeeming qualities (like his willingness to help Nancy study for the test in the first episode when she told him this test mattered to her, or apologizing to Nancy for his self-absorbed reaction to Barbara’s disappearance) to show there was a decent person underneath, and an arc of his own where the toxicity of his former friends was impacting his behavior and he needed to make a choice whether to stay with them or cut them off. As we see, he did the latter.

This is also why I’m not really impressed by this person’s attempts to paint Steve on the show as a creepy wannabe rapist: It’s like they read the Montauk Script, decided that’s who Steve’s character should have been, got upset when the show didn’t go that route, proceeded to try and find reasons for why it was bad they didn't go with Steve's original characterization, and is now re-interpreting any interaction between Steve and Nancy on the show in the most bad-faith manner possible.

By the way, I’ve sat through this show several times now, and I have never seen anything that indicated to me that Steve intended to force himself on Nancy, or pressure her into having sex with him. I have also watched this show with other people, including family, friends, and mutuals, who have never gotten that impression as well. Even my sister, who has had her own ugly experiences with boys who would not respect boundaries, never got that impression from Steve when she saw him.

As for the snide claim about how the only reason Steve was changed was because the Duffer Brothers liked Joe Keery……………I maintain this is a gross oversimplification for several reasons:

If a character like Steve staying on the show as long as he did and rewriting his character was only contingent on the Duffer Brothers liking the actor, why didn’t this happen for other actors and the characters they play? Are we supposed to believe that Elodie Grace Orkin (who plays Angela), or Ross Partridge (who plays Lonnie), or Peyton Wich (who plays Troy), or Dacre Montgomery (who plays Billy) were so deeply unpleasant to work with that the Duffer Brothers couldn’t wait to write out their characters the first chance they got? I haven’t ever heard of anything negative regarding these actors, and for all I know they could be lovely people to be around. Doesn’t change the fact the fictional characters they portrayed were loathsome individuals, and the Duffer Brothers didn’t alter those characters to make them nicer just because they may have liked the actors.

Contrary to what some fans have claimed, Steve is NOT the only character who went through a radical change between the Montauk Script and the final product. As I’ve noted several times now in my reviews, there were significant changes made to other characters: Dustin for instance went from being the fat kid with weight issues to having an arc centered around his scientific interests and his overall place in the Party, as well as how the writers incorporated Gaten Matarazzo’s CCD into the character to raise awareness about the condition. Lucas went from an angry loudmouthed kid who causes problems for the Party and whose parents constantly fight to coming from a stable and happy family and having an ironclad sense of loyalty to the Party (even if he disagrees with them on certain issues). Terry Ives went from an antisocial conspiracy nut looking to have their theories validated to a sympathetic mother who had her child stolen from her after being a part of unethical experiments, and did everything in her power to get her child back and got crushed by the system as a result.

Simply put, the Duffer Brothers probably realized there was more they could do with Steve’s character beyond making him a one-dimensional bully and rapist. It’s not like they didn’t already have a plethora of bullies on this show to fill that role. Writing a character like Billy, Tommy, Carol, or Angela is easy. Writing a character like Steve, with complexity and depth, is more of a challenge, and one the Duffer Brothers were eager to accept. This isn’t conjecture by the way. This is something Joe Keery even talked about in Worlds Turned Upside Down:

As for the claim of Steve’s redemption coming out of nowhere………I’m going to assume this person has never heard of an epiphany (or the ability to reflect on one’s behavior and realize you were in the wrong), has never met anyone who’s had an epiphany or done any introspection regarding how they acted where they apologized and tried to do better (which makes me feel sorry for them), or it’s just them being disingenuous (like they were when they claimed they didn’t hate Steve). I’ve already talked about what led up to him finally cutting ties with Tommy and Carol, and making amends with Jonathan and Nancy, but simply put, Steve did not like the person he became in that moment. Seeing how nasty and miserable Tommy and Carol were as people made him realize he didn’t want to be that kind of person, and that his behavior towards Jonathan and Nancy was cruel and he feels awful about it. This isn’t that hard of a concept to grasp.

In any case, this conversation I’m referring to was years ago. I deactivated my account on Reddit in early 2023, and I haven’t been back since. Even in regards to Tumblr, my interactions with other fans are limited these days. Considering everything that’s happened over the past year, and seeing just how vile people have become, and how many talk a big game about morals and unlearning biases but won’t actually put it into practice when it really matters, I’ve become pretty disillusioned and started distancing myself. Stranger Things will probably be the last fandom I’m ever in. I am only doing these reviews for me, and for the benefit of the 4-5 mutuals who are interested in them. I have no delusions these will ever be popular, and I am okay with that.

For the record, I’m glad they reworked Steve’s character, and actually gave him an arc of becoming a better person. Now, more than ever, we need that. There are plenty of Tommys, Carols, Billys, and Angelas out there already, especially on social media. They are as tiresome as they are predictable, and I’m sick of encountering people like them. I want people like Steve who are willing to put in the fucking effort to be better. Not make excuses, not double-down, not get on the cross to portray themselves as a victim, not be condescending brats when they’re called out for their behavior………….but actually make an effort to improve. I am not petty, and I don’t adhere to the “purity culture” that’s messed up so many fandoms and people on the Right AND the Left. I give credit where credit is due. If someone is sincere about changing, I’m willing to give that grace (similar to the theater guy who let Steve clean up the spray-paint).

Part 4: Reunions

The chase scene at the beginning of the episode was my favorite part, being both awesome and funny at the same time. I know the situation itself was serious, but when Lucas was shouting over the walkie-talkie about the bad men coming, I couldn’t help but think of those 80s PSAs they used to do about stranger danger:

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I also laughed at Mike’s line to his mom about leaving the country. Reminds me of one of the storylines Calvin and Hobbes did were they accidentally rolled the car into a ditch and were forced to go on the run:

Calvin had it easy by comparison. Mike and his friends did not, and were lucky to escape Brenner and his men by the skin of their teeth.

There were two movies that came to mind when I was watching the chase scene, and even the aftermath when Brenner shows up at the Wheeler’s house. The first is an obvious reference: E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial. Agents coming in and confiscating evidence at Mike’s house, like when government employees from that movie take over Elliot’s house and keep him and his family quarantined when they discover E.T. with them. Even the chase with the kids on the bikes pays homage to this movie:

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Obviously, they didn’t have El lift everyone’s bikes in the air and fly to freedom, but we did get an awesome scene of El flipping a van. To my understanding, this was accomplished with a real van. You can even listen to how they did this effect here.

Another movie that gets a shout-out is an anime called Akira, which has been cited as an inspiration for the show along with E.T. and Elfen Lied.

Akira is a 1988 anime film set in an alternate reality where World War III (which started on July 16, 1988) has come and gone, and the city of Neo-Tokyo in the year 2019 has risen from the ashes. A crime-filled city with biker gangs, escalating violence, lawlessness, unemployment, government corruption, and the general sense the world’s going to hell in a hand-basket, the anime deals with a government program regarding special kids called Espers (referred to in-universe as Numbers), who possess powerful psychic and psychokinetic powers derived from a source known as Akira. One evening, a biker named Tetsuo from one of these gangs comes into contact with an escaped Esper (named Takashi/Number 26) on the road, resulting Tetsuo accidentally obtaining these powers that he can’t control, which causes havoc on his physical and mental health, as well as on Neo Tokyo itself.

I plan to talk more about this anime in later reviews as I believe it has more applicability to later seasons (like Colonel Shikishima and all the politicking in the movie having eerily parallels to Colonel Sullivan and the different factions in the U.S. government split over El’s existence in season 4, as well as the general theme of accelerationism present in both the movie and the show), and may even factor heavily into season 5 regarding the military’s presence in Hawkins. However, there are subtle shout outs to it in the chase scene, like Tetsuo’s crash upon encountering Takashi/Number 26 in the middle of the road, similar to how El flips the van when it’s coming for them. Or the street chase in general, with the difference being the boys from Stranger Things are on bikes instead of motorcycles.

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Even the scene with the helicopter searching for the boys in the junkyard (and the agents later arriving with guns) reminds me of the scene from the anime where the military has Kaneda’s bike gang pinned down, recaptures Number 26, and takes Tetsuo into custody. Obvious difference is El and the boys aren’t captured because Hopper comes in time to rescue them.

I know Hopper’s character was inspired by Chief Brody from Jaws, and I see the similarities, especially in seasons 3-4 when he’s dealing with Mayor Kline (whose character was also inspired by the Mayor from Jaws) and when Hopper finally gets to fight the Soviet Demogorgon. However, for the most part (especially in this picture), I see more present similarities with Indiana Jones:

Hell, the scene where Hopper, Nancy, Jonathan, and Joyce are watching as Brenner’s men raid the Wheeler House reminds me of the scene from The Last Crusade when Indy, his father, and Sallah are in the Hatay State, spying on the Nazis in the desert as they’ve arrived to find the Holy Grail. Thankfully, Hopper and his group don’t get spotted by Brenner’s men the same way Indy does by the Nazis, and they’re able to leave before they are.

A movie series constantly referenced by the characters on this show is Star Wars. I haven’t really talked about the original trilogy because the references are well-known by the characters in-universe and the audience, with most people being familiar with the plot of those movies. However, the reference made to Lando Calrissian by the boys as they’re debating about whether to trust Nancy and Hopper when they communicate with them via walkie-talkie is important for the next episode. Just like how Lando was forced to make a choice between betraying Han, Leia, Chewbacca, and C-3PO to the Empire in order to protect the residents of Cloud City, Hopper is going to be forced to make a morally questionable choice regarding giving El’s location to Brenner in order to rescue Will. We’ll discuss the ramifications of that in the next review.

Part 5: The Bathtub

For an episode that spends almost half its time with the characters constructing their own sensory deprivation tank for El to communicate with Will, the process they go through to accomplish this was fun to watch.

I enjoyed the phone call between Dustin and Mr. Clarke. Aside from how funny it is Dustin is calling on a Saturday (when Mr. Clarke is on a date no less) and unconvincingly claiming he’s just building this for fun, we do get to see the pushier side of Dustin (“Why are you keeping this curiosity door locked?!”) that both Steve and Eddie would later comment on in season 4:

youtube

The fact Mr. Clarke takes it in stride though (and doesn’t probe too deeply into Dustin’s motivations) goes to show how chill of a guy he is. The Duffer Brothers admitted in the companion book Worlds Turned Upside Down that Mr. Clarke was the science teacher they wished they had growing up, and his character was even inspired by Carl Sagan and the videos he did for Cosmos: A Personal Voyage (which is mentioned in “The Flea and the Acrobat” when the boys get information from Mr. Clarke about alternate dimensions).

As for the woman Mr. Clarke is watching The Thing with, her name is Jen Woo, and she later comes back in the comic book Tomb of Ybwen, where she plays an important role in helping Mr. Clarke rescue the boys when they’re trapped in a snowstorm. Considering the events of that comic take place in January 1985 (a year and two months after season 1), this implies they either have an on/off-again relationship, or they’re a couple. Either way, I hope she and Mr. Clarke come back for season 5.

The sensory deprivation process and the experiments Terry Ives and El went through in the previous episode were inspired by a science-fiction horror film called Altered States. The movie centers around a man named Edward “Eddie” Jessup, a psychopathologist at Columbia University who experiments with sensory deprivation and psychedelics/hallucinogenic drugs as a means of understanding mental illnesses (specifically schizophrenia) and to explore the mind’s ability to transcend reality. Due to a traumatic experience over his father’s death (his father had cancer), he’s come to disbelieve in the idea of God, and believes these experiments can unlock the true self and access the limitless potentials of the human mind and memories (which he claims involves 6 billion years of memories from atoms that are 6 billion years old). After traveling with a colleague to the Hinchi tribe in Mexico to try a special potion made from magic mushrooms, a shrub called sinicuiche, and his own blood, he brings the concoction back with him for more experiments. However, the deeper he goes into these hallucinations, the more it begins to impact his mental and physical state, to the point of even threatening to alter his genetics.

Like I explained in my review of “Holly Jolly,” there may have been a point in time when the Duffer Brothers considered the idea of LSD, other psychedelics, and experiments involving sensory deprivation tanks allowing the human mind to open up and explore different realities while also transforming their genetic makeup and giving that person special abilities. As of season 4 and The First Shadow, we know that the special abilities El, Kali, and the other kids at the Lab had were due to Henry/One/Vecna’s blood, which had been altered all those years ago when Henry was transported into the Upside Down as a child and came in contact with the Mind Flayer. Even Terry’s ability to communicate via the lights with El in season 2 could be explained by the blood transfusion Brenner administered to Terry during the psychedelic experiments when she was pregnant with El.

In any case, the reason I bring this movie up now is for two reasons. One is how the main character, Edward, eventually starts doing his experiments in a horizontally contained space like El’s bathtub, except El’s was out in the open surrounded by people, whereas Edward keeps himself isolated in this container:

The second has to do with Joyce’s promise to be there for El.

Joyce in many ways serves as a perfect foil to Brenner. Brenner is cold, detached, calculated, and a man who views others as beneath him in terms of intellect. Meanwhile, Joyce is warm, willing to empathize with people (as she does here with El), gets labeled as a mess by other people when she actually has a pretty good sense of what’s going on around her, and has a caring side to her. Compared to Brenner, who would throw El in the sensory deprivation tank and cut her off from any contact that wasn’t coming from the Void, Joyce is willing to be there for El as a comforting presence while she remote-views. It reminds me of what happens in Altered States when Edwards love interest, Emily, manages to break through how deeply he’s gone into his experiments with the love she has for him. In this case, it’s Joyce’s paternal love for El.

The common theme in this series centers on the idea of love (whether romantic, platonic, familial, friendship, etc) as a superpower for the main characters. It sounds cliché when said out-loud, but not only does it keep the characters grounded when things go badly for them, it allows them to find inner strength they didn’t realize they had, which allows them to repel the darker influences that threaten to destroy them. This was even true in The First Shadow for Henry/One/Vecna: His love for Patty Newby allowed him to briefly fight off the Mind Flayer’s influence and save her adoptive father, Principal Newby.

El’s trip into the Void to locate Barbara and Will was both creepy and sad. First time I saw this, I had a sick feeling Barbara didn’t survive, which turned out to be true. The way her body is mutilated and cocooned in the slime and mucus reminds me of what the Xenomorphs from the Alien Series did to humans unlucky enough to cross their path. Talk about a gruesome and lonely end:

The original concept art for Barbara’s death was originally supposed to be A LOT MORE GRUESOME:

This was eventually cut, with the Duffer Brothers offering the explanation that they wanted Barbara to remain recognizable to confirm to the audience she was truly dead. According to Worlds Turned Upside Down though, this did NOT stop the fanbase at the time from speculating on the idea that she could still be rescued from the Upside Down. As we know now, that wasn’t meant to be.

Interestingly, it was originally supposed to be a spider that came out of Barbara’s mouth instead of the slug. We know the significance of the slug to the Demogorgon’s life-cycle, but why a spider originally? We know Henry/One/Vecna had a deep fascination with spiders as a kid, and there was originally concept art for a Demospider (as I noted in my first review) that may or may not appear in season 5. Could it be subtle foreshadowing? I know I keep coming back to Henry/One/Vecna, but the Duffer Brothers have admitted to Vecna being planned out from the beginning (as early as 2015 in fact, given this interview took place in 2022), so it’s not entirely irrational to suggest there was subtle foreshadowing in season 1 (and seasons 2-3) for his character being the unseen presence in the Upside Down who’s watching everything play out.

This leads me to the next bit when El finds Will.

The scene when the vision of Will and Castle Byers disappears in a cloud of smoke reminds me of what happened in season 3 when El spied on Billy (who was possessed by the Mind Flayer) and saw him kidnapping Heather: The moment Billy realized El was watching, the vision immediately dissolved before she could investigate further. The way El panics when the vision of Will begins to disappear makes it seem like a similar thing occurred here.

This raises an intriguing question: Did the Mind Flayer (or even Vecna) realize El was remote-viewing in the Upside Down and allowed El to briefly see Will, knowing he’d be rescued, before they dissolved the vision on their own accord?

Then there’s the matter of the Demogorgon taking Will at the end of the episode: There’s no question Vecna or even the Mind Flayer had to know Will was there, even before the Demogorgon attacked. The Other Side showed that Will was mostly by his house in the Upside Down during his week there (with only the occasional ventures he made into town, but never too far). Even without the comic, it makes sense on the show that Will would stay in an area he was familiar with (even if the terrain surrounding it was hostile). Vecna and the Mind Flayer are connected to vines and other monsters lurking in the Upside Down, which would allow them to see where Will was at all times. Whatever Will did during his time in the Upside Down, they were aware of it.

I know Will gets impregnated with the slugs, and we see him barfing them up in the next episode, but I don’t think that’s all there is to why they wanted Will. I even question if they truly need humans to reproduce Demogorgons and other monsters. This is a world that allegedly hasn’t been in contact with Earth for thousands of years (and likely never knew anything about humans prior to 1943 when the U.S.S. Eldridge got transported there) and yet the monsters there managed to reproduce during that time without using humans as hosts. I’ve said it before, but whatever fixation the Mind Flayer and Vecna have on Will has to extend past this. I still have the theory that Will’s blood has been altered at this point due to his exposure to the Mind Flayer in the Upside Down, and while we haven’t yet seen any special powers from him like with El, we do know he has a connection with the Mind Flayer (even BEFORE he got possessed by its black particles in season 2), which I believe has something to do with the altered blood, and could possibly come into play during season 5.

Like I’ve said, there’s a lot of speculating I’m doing in these reviews.

Part 6: Nancy and Jonathan

Gotta love how, in spite of being chewed out by Hopper and Joyce for trying to go after the Demogorgon to kill it, the episode still ends with Nancy and Jonathan following through on that plan. To be fair, they have a legitimate concern in wanting to keep the Demogorgon away from Hopper and Joyce while they travel through the Gate. However, both groups got lucky: We know for a fact there’s more than one Demogorgon in the Upside Down, and plenty of other monsters out there we haven’t seen yet. If Vecna or the Mind Flayer really wanted to, they could have sent a number of these monsters after Joyce and Hopper to prevent them from reaching Will. I’ll talk more about Will’s rescue in the next episode, but with what’s revealed in later seasons, his rescue almost seems like Vecna and the Mind Flayer allowed Will to escape.

In Nancy’s case, with Barbara’s gruesome death, her desire to kill the Demogorgon is personal. Like Nancy Thompson from A Nightmare on Elm Street, she is getting the traps ready for the monster and using herself as bait to lure it out. At least she has Jonathan to help her, whereas Nancy from the movie was forced to do this on her own once Freddy had killed off her friends and boyfriend. We will see these parallels revisited again in season 4 when Nancy goes up against Vecna, with it being just as personal for her there as it is here.

Same thing goes for Jonathan: The Demogorgon took his brother and has been terrorizing his mother. It’s just as personal for him, and he does not want to lose Will or Joyce to this monster.

Final Thoughts:

No songs to talk about for this review. Looking forward to finishing season 1 this week!

Also, RIP Barbara Holland! Here is a Funko Pop in your honor:

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crehador · 7 days ago

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brother crab's spring 2025 parting thoughts: wind breaker s2

ok. so. there's a lot i really liked in this season (and the series overall) and one thing i really don't. but the one thing i don't like is, tbh, not exactly something the series can do anything about or even its fault per se (will get more into that later)

first, the good: i really liked sakura's development in the first half of this season, as usual i love the more slice-of-life type moments with the group just hanging out together (team mario kart, bullying suo over team lunch, etc), and the fights stay beautiful. well-animated and well-choreographed, nothing to complain about there

the one thing that has me going ehhh is just...

basically what wind breaker feels like to me is a sports anime where the sport is beating the shit out of each other, and that should be a great thing because i love sports anime. one of my favorite genres for sure

the problem is, in a sports anime with a typical sport, they don't really need a reason to keep introducing new rival teams for the main team to compete against. a reason as simple and straightforward as "we want to make it to nationals" can carry a whole series when it's basketball or volleyball or what have you

but tragically there are no nationals of beating the shit out of each other so wind breaker ends up having to keep coming up with new reasons to introduce each new group to fight

and to me that part, the transitions between fight arcs, is just a bit... goofy. and repetitive. it feels like it's been an endless cycle of a weird guy appear -> weird guy likes to fight -> we disapprove of weird guy's reasons for fighting -> we fight weird guy -> we defeat and/or domesticate weird guy -> a new weird guy appear

i don't think there's really anything that can be done about that, like yeah they need to keep introducing new teams. and they need reasons because it can't just be the next team we need to beat for nationals. but at a certain point it just gets tiresome and silly, especially when the stakes feel a little forced

besides the weak transitions between fights though, i still think it's a really solid series. the character bonding moments are the strongest to me, the cast is cute and endearing and easy to like. the fights, visually, are excellent and fun to watch. there's just that one. inevitable. flaw

tl;dr these guys need the nationals of beating each other up. tbh.

#crab watches #spring 2025 #parting thoughts #wind breaker #i think i felt the same at the end of s1 #like really enjoyable overall BUT narratively missing something (wrt to the fight arcs)#the character arcs themselves imo are solid #but the weird guy appear cycle is just. getting a bit. BUT LIKE #unavoidable ofc #anyway. for the cast alone i will certainly be sticking around lol

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my-rewrite-academia · 4 months ago

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piggybacking off of the previous anon's ask, how do you start re-writing in the first place? how can you tell if there's gaps in plot or missing information/information that doesn't correlate? I've always been so interested in people who re-write things and wanted to know how you start to do this?

Hello!

Hm, this is strange. Not the question, of course, but my answer. I can't speak for everyone, but when it comes to rewriting stuff, there's only two reasons, for me:

One; I find the world and characters interesting.

Two; I find the world and characters lacking.

For 'One's case, I want to rewrite the story, not because I was disappointed with what we were given, but because I'm greedy and want even more. If the geographical world building is amazing, then I'd want to see that translated into the historical world building, and vice versa. Maybe it's not necessary for the story, but I find myself wondering even more.

More often than not, the first case leads to a regular fanfiction, rather than all-out rewrite. After all, if I tried to do a rewrite where I'm satisfied with mostly everything, it's more of a novellisation than anything else. So, a fanfic does me just fine in those cases.

Now, for 'Two's case, it's a bit more complicated, and it's the reason I decided to rewrite MHA. Both the world building and the characters, in my opinion, were lacking. Geography-wise, we have no idea how countries outside of Japan function with quirks and heroics. History-wise, we only know about All for One and the birth of quirks. No idea what happened after quirks were discovered, just that it led to the present in canon.

When it comes to deciding what I want to rewrite, I sit on it for a while, figuring out if I could actually do something with what I'm presented with, if I could really handle anything or anyone better than canon did.

With MHA, the answer is easy. Because it's easy to handle a character better when that character barely exists in canon material. Most of 1-A are placeholders, so I knew that I could make them more interesting by giving them an actual arc.

how can you tell if there's gaps in plot or missing information/information that doesn't correlate?

This is more of byproduct of reading something critically, rather than out of enjoyment. This isn't for everyone, of course. Many people dislike reading fiction critically, as it may take the enjoyment out of it. For people like me, however, I actually enjoy looking at stuff critically. Acknowledging the faults in something, after all, doesn't mean I can't enjoy it.

Plot holes aren't as damning as some may paint them to be. Stuff like a character saying they hate coconut in an early chapter, but enjoying it in a later one isn't a deal breaker. I can look past that, as it's nothing big.

For example, in Race to the Edge, Tuffnut says and hears 'tears' many times, but it's revealed in a later episode that he can't hear 'tears' without crying. In later episodes, this is forgotten once more. This is, of course, a continuity error, but it's minor enough to be forgiven.

There actually aren't too many plot holes in MHA, but there are a lot of plot contrivances. For those who don't know, a plot hole is defined as a gap or inconsistency in a storyline which contradicts the established logic within the world. A plot contrivance is when plot points are forced or artificial in nature.

Using MHA as an example, a plot hole would be how Shouto uses his quirks simultaneously during the Sports Festival, but is later revealed to be unable to do so.

MHA is full of plot contrivances: Tooru getting into U.A. (the off-switches are not canon), Minoru staying in U.A., nobody having an issue with Bakugou post-USJ, Nighteye's death, Bakugou's apology, Iron Might, and so on.

These are all plot contrivances, as they're forced into the story. There is no explanation as to why Tooru got into U.A., why Minoru hasn't been punished for sexual harrassment, why Bakugou isn't hated by his peers, why Nighteye was forgiven in his death, why Bakugou's apology did anything for Izuku, why Iron Might had to happen, and so on.

These make up most of the issues with MHA, when looking at it with a critical eye. There's also the fact that Horikoshi just... didn't do anything with much of what he had.

Horikoshi is good at a lot of things. His art is amazing, his foreshadowing is great, his build-up is great, his designs are... mostly good. But he also sucks at a lot of things.

The world of MHA is very interesting, but it's never really drawn upon. We don't know much about heroics as a career and lifestyle works. Did the MLA actually have a point? How do quirks affect lifestyles other than heroics? How has society progressed with quirks?

There's a lot of unanswered questions in MHA, which is a large reason why I wanted to rewrite it. To create answers to those with my own hands - Horikoshi certainly wasn't going to give them.

Thanks for the ask!

#my rewrite academia #bnha #mha #boku no hero academia #my hero academia #mha critical #rewrite #horikoshi critical #ask

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minjoonapio · 9 months ago

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🎐 Wind Breaker Chapter 156: Overheat

💭 THOUGHTS & ANALYSIS [⚠️ SPOILERS ⚠️]

🧵Twitter/X Version 📖Where to read: Kodansha | Other 📺Watch Season 1 now (S2 in 2025!): Crunchyroll, Netflix

This was more than I ever imagined. At first, I thought we would have Umemiya & Chika laughing & enjoying the fight like Togame & Sakura in the Shishitoren arc, but I think that won’t be a good approach.

Having that idea happen would give out the kind of relationship or bond that Umemiya and Chika has. With what Nii sensei wrote, yes, i should focus more on Umemiya's point of view and build back up his resolve. Nii sensei has written for us a good chapter.

Finally getting Ume’s pov! This is kind of a parallel to what happened with Togame & Choji, where Togame realizes he should’ve fought or argued with the Shishitoren leader, his best friend; have a conversation.

From these current pages, I don't think Umemiya had a proper conversation with Chika.

Umemiya is glad that Chika is looking at him with what looks like excitement, and heightened interest. Perhaps Ume feels assured that Chika doesn’t see him in a bad light and that he has a chance to connect with him, even though they disagree on ideals.

Ok there's quite a lot to unpack about this part of Umemiya’s internal monologue.

Ume admitted he was blinded by his rage towards Chika for involving the town when all they wanted was him. But it’s not until his head finally cleared up, that he realized how it’s all his fault.

Umemiya has been treating Chika as an enemy. That he ruined their peace. When in fact, in the beginning, he wanted Chika to be part of that peace. Ume just didn't understand why he didn't want to. He never tried. He just let Chika be when he left Furin.

Now, we understand why Endo talks about Umemiya that way. That he was selfish.

Ume has been shoving his ideals on them. Whenever they fought, it’s always “If I win, you JOIN me” or “If I win, acknowledge MY GOALS”. Umemiya was trying to FORCE Chika to give in to his wants, without acknowledging Chika’s feelings or fully understanding him.

When Umemiya says these lines (refer to panels above), it’s not to end the fight with Chika. It’s to put an end to the whole thing. And that is by getting to FINALLY understand each other. Umemiya knew he should’ve done this before and this mess wouldn’t have happened.

I wonder how their conversation will turn out. Will they truly see eye to eye? Or perhaps find a bit of common ground? Whatever will happen, we will at least get to know more of Chika Takiishi.

Things get spicy when Chika starts throwing not just one but TWO tables! Umemiya hit all of them but Chika used that to hide himself in order to get close and land a horrible punch to the gut.

Now we got a chair AND A TABLE thrown off the roof!

I unfortunately have experienced a hit to the gut (not through a fist fight btw). Rather than feeling nauseous, you truly have the wind knocked out of you and depending how hard you're hit, you'll be bordering between being conscious and unconscious.

And Umemiya has been receiving more blows on the stomach in this chapter. Now wonder he looks like he's about to pass out at the end😬

I know it’s a typical shounen thing but still, Ume saying this line is not beating the Gojo-alike allegations (other than having the same Japanese VA)

“My kouhai/student is watching” I actually like this culture of taking care & guiding your juniors. They want what's best for them. I don't often see that here in my country where the older or seniors try their best to be a good example to their juniors.

The way I kicked and screamed when it FINALLY RAINED!! I KNEW IT! Thank you, Nii sensei (although i expected it in the middle of the fight and not near the end of it haha. Maybe saved for a more dramatic flare later👀)

Ume is proud of Sakura! 😭 Like I said in the previous chapter, without our Main Character Sakura there, Ume wouldn't have snapped out of it. All the more, Sakura has given him strength and motivation to win this fight. The fact that he's in this rooftop with him, and sitting beside his opponent, a "Furin legend", Umemiya just knew Sakura did an impossible feat.

Sakura has sealed it for Ume that he is worthy of taking his place as the top, the future leader. He's all the more happy!

For a while, I forgot Endo was known to be a legend. But after we got to know him these past chapters, he’s become more of a silly psycho in love to me. 😆

Chika having that moment like Endo had with Sakura. He saw something in Umemiya’s face and backed out. What could it be? Something similar to Endo? Or is it he can finally see Umemiya clearly now? (If it's true that he has face blindness)

The moment Chika froze and Umemiya clutched his wrist & called his name, it’s over.

Jeez! A freakin' sucker punch to Chika’s pretty face. Do you think Chika is knocked out? Or just disoriented? With how this was a closing to a mini arc of Umemiya, I assume they will finally have that talk. I don't think there's anything more to be said in their fight.

This has been a satisfying chapter. Again, it's more that I ever imagined it to be. The high we feel absorbing Umemiya’s perspective & resolve and through their fists. What a way to wrap it up!

Thanks for reading! 💚🎐 Break next week! Next chapter will be up on Oct 8, Tuesday!

🧵Twitter/X Version 📖Where to read: Kodansha | Other 📺Watch Season 1 now (S2 in 2025!): Crunchyroll, Netflix

#wind breaker #umemiya hajime #chika takiishi #ウィンブレ #sakura haruka #endo yamato #wind breaker manga #nii satoru #wbk

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almondenterprise · 2 months ago

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Cost vs. Quality: What to Consider When Investing in Switchgear

In today’s energy-intensive world, switchgear plays a critical role in managing power distribution safely and efficiently. Whether you’re upgrading your industrial facility, building a commercial plant, or powering a large infrastructure project, choosing the right switchgear is not just a technical decision — it’s a strategic investment. One of the most common dilemmas buyers face is balancing cost vs. quality. So, how do you decide?

Understanding Switchgear: The Heart of Electrical Safety

Switchgear is a combination of electrical disconnect switches, fuses, or circuit breakers used to control, protect, and isolate electrical equipment. Its primary role is to ensure the reliability and safety of your power system.

Types of switchgear include:

· Low-voltage switchgear (for commercial and residential use)

· Medium-voltage switchgear (typically for industrial applications)

· High-voltage switchgear (used in power transmission)

Investing in the right switchgear directly impacts operational continuity, personnel safety, and overall infrastructure reliability.

The True Cost of Cheap Switchgear:

While it’s tempting to opt for budget-friendly solutions, low-cost switchgear often comes with hidden risks and long-term expenses.

Inferior Material Quality

Cheaper models often use substandard materials that degrade faster, leading to frequent maintenance or early replacement.

Safety Hazards

Low-quality switchgear can result in arc faults, insulation failure, or overheating — putting workers and equipment at risk.

Increased Lifecycle Costs

Although the initial price may be low, the total cost of ownership (including downtime, repair, and energy inefficiency) is usually higher.

Limited Scalability and Customization

Budget systems are often rigid and harder to scale as your facility grows or needs change.

Why Quality Switchgear Pays Off

When you invest in premium switchgear, you’re not just buying a product — you’re buying peace of mind.

Enhanced Reliability

High-quality switchgear is engineered to perform in extreme conditions and handle high fault levels without compromising performance.

Superior Safety Standards

Reputable brands comply with international standards such as IEC, ANSI, or UL, reducing liability and improving workplace safety.

Ease of Maintenance

Well-built switchgear is modular and user-friendly, simplifying diagnostics and minimizing downtime during maintenance.

Energy Efficiency & Smart Capabilities

Modern switchgear includes IoT sensors, real-time monitoring, and predictive maintenance features, ensuring optimal energy use and proactive problem resolution.

Key Factors to Consider When Choosing Switchgear

When evaluating switchgear options, balance cost and quality by focusing on the following:

1. Application Requirements

Understand your voltage class, load types, and fault current ratings. Quality should match your operational demands.

2. Brand Reputation & Certification

Look for trusted brands with certifications like ISO 9001, CE, or IEC 62271. Positive reviews and case studies add credibility.

3. Lifecycle Costs

Don’t just compare sticker prices — consider maintenance, service availability, spare part costs, and expected lifespan.

4. Customization & Flexibility

Choose systems that can evolve with your operation. Modular designs support upgrades and expansions more efficiently.

5. Support and Service

Ensure the manufacturer provides robust after-sales support, technical training, and warranty services.

Cost vs. Quality: The Bottom Line

When it comes to switchgear, cheap is rarely cheerful. Cutting corners today can lead to outages, hazards, and hefty repair bills tomorrow. On the other hand, investing in high-quality switchgear ensures operational resilience, safety, and long-term savings.

The smartest strategy? Aim for value, not just price. Evaluate switchgear as a long-term asset, not just a one-time purchase.

Trending Tip: Think Smart and Sustainable

With rising energy demands and climate-conscious regulations, smart and sustainable switchgear is trending. Look for:

· Eco-friendly insulation (like SF₆-free switchgear)

· Energy management features

· Digital monitoring systems

Investing in such features not only future-proofs your infrastructure but can also help you qualify for green certifications and incentives.

Final Thoughts

Balancing cost and quality in switchgear selection is about understanding your long-term operational goals. By focusing on durability, safety, and lifecycle value, you can make a decision that protects both your budget and your business.

#electrical equipment #qatar #switchgear #electrical #electricity #industrial

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daleeltrading · 2 months ago

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Low Voltage Switchgear for Commercial Buildings: Key Requirements, Standards, and Best Practices

In the construction and modernization of commercial buildings, low voltage switchgear plays a critical role in ensuring safe, reliable, and efficient power distribution. From office complexes and retail malls to hospitals and data centers, these buildings rely on robust electrical infrastructure — and low voltage switchgear is the backbone of that system.

Whether you’re an electrical panel manufacturer, a building contractor, or a facility manager, understanding the key requirements for selecting and integrating LV switchgear in commercial buildings is essential.

What Is Low Voltage Switchgear?

Low voltage switchgear is an assembly of electrical devices designed to control, protect, and isolate electrical circuits under 1,000V AC. It typically includes:

· Air Circuit Breakers (ACBs)

· Molded Case Circuit Breakers (MCCBs)

· Miniature Circuit Breakers (MCBs)

· Contactors and Relays

· Busbars

· Metering and Protection Devices

Why LV Switchgear Is Critical in Commercial Buildings

Commercial buildings demand:

· Continuous power availability

· High energy efficiency

· Electrical safety for occupants

· Scalability for future expansion

Low voltage switchgear delivers:

· Protection against overloads and short circuits

· Isolation for maintenance and fault conditions

· Load management for energy optimization

· Monitoring via smart metering and IoT integration

Key Requirements for LV Switchgear in Commercial Applications

Safety & Protection Standards

Must comply with IEC 61439 or UL 891 depending on the region

Must include overcurrent, short-circuit, and earth fault protection

Arc flash safety features (like arc fault containment) are crucial in populated buildings

2. Compact Footprint and Modular Design

Space is often limited in commercial utility rooms. LV switchgear should be:

Compact to fit tight electrical rooms

Modular for easy expansion as building loads increase

3. Smart Metering and Monitoring

Today’s commercial buildings demand energy-efficient and intelligent systems. Choose LV switchgear with:

Integrated smart meters

IoT-based energy monitoring

Remote control via BMS (Building Management Systems)

4. High Service Continuity (Form Segregation)

To ensure maintenance without full shutdowns, opt for:

Form 3b or Form 4b segregation

Withdrawable ACBs or MCCBs

Dual incomer and bus coupler arrangements for redundancy

5. Scalability and Flexibility

Commercial facilities evolve. Your switchgear must too:

Allow for load expansion

Be compatible with renewable sources (like solar panels)

Support future retrofits and upgrades

Standards to Follow

Ensure LV switchgear in commercial buildings is compliant with:

IEC 61439–1/2 — General and Power Switchgear Assemblies

UL 891 — US Standard for Dead-Front Switchboards

NEC (National Electrical Code) or local building codes

Also factor in:

Ingress Protection (IP Ratings) — IP54/IP65 for dusty or humid environments

Short Circuit Withstand Ratings — Ensure it matches building fault levels

Best Practices for Installation in Commercial Building

Centralize the switchgear for easy maintenance and reduced cable runs

Provide ample ventilation or forced cooling

Use color-coded wiring for clear identification

Ensure emergency shutdown mechanisms are accessible

Document the system with single-line diagrams and load calculations

Applications in Commercial Buildings

Office Buildings: Smart load shedding and energy metering

Hospitals: Redundant systems for life safety

Data Centers: N+1 configurations and continuous monitoring

Malls & Retail: Segmented load distribution for different zones

Hotels: Backup and emergency panel integration

Choosing the Right LV Switchgear Partner

Look for a supplier who provides

Customized switchgear assemblies

Fast lead times and local support

Engineering assistance for layout and specs

Pre-tested or type-tested assemblies

Future Trends in Commercial LV Switchgear

Digitization & predictive maintenance

Energy-efficient, low-loss designs

AI-assisted load forecasting

SF6-free eco-friendly designs

Need Help Choosing LV Switchgear for Your Next Commercial Project?

At Daleel Trading, we supply certified, compact, and smart low voltage switchgear solutions tailored for commercial buildings. Whether it’s a small retail site or a multi-floor office tower, we deliver performance, compliance, and reliability — on time.

👉 Contact us today for a quote, a technical consultation, or a custom panel solution.

#electrical #low voltage #switchgear #uae #dubai

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enzaelectric · 4 months ago

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How to Choose the Best Low Voltage Switchgear for Your Project

Low voltage switch gears are significant to an industry, commercial or residential installation in ensuring the safe and effective power distribution. Selecting the right switchgear is key in making sure the system will be reliable, preventing electrical faults, and optimizing energy efficiency. Buying switchgear may appear challenging, given the number of options available in the market. The guide below will assist in grasping the vital aspects to consider in choosing low-voltage switchgear in 2025.

What is Low Voltage Switchgear?

Low voltage (LV) switchgear is an assembly of circuit breakers, disconnects, fuses, relays, and other protective equipment for controlling and protecting electric systems in voltages of up to 1,000V AC. It is commonly used in:

Industrial power distribution systems;

Commercial buildings;

Data centers;

Hospitals;

Renewable energy systems.

Choosing Low Voltage Switchgear: Important Considerations

1. Understand Your Project Requirements

Understanding your project requirements for assessing power distribution should include:

Voltage and current rating. This is for ensuring compatibility of load.

Type of application: For example, both industrial and commercial as well as residential and renewable sources.

The fault current rating: Ensure that it can withstand the maximum possible fault current.

Number of feeders and expansion requirements: Be sure to plan for possible future growth.

2. Safety and Compliance with Standards

As far as safety is concerned, the other critical consideration when selecting switchgear is to ensure that it has met the following:

IEC 61439 or ANSI/NEMA standards-Properly complying with international safety and performance standards.

Arc flash protection-Reduces the risk of being exposed to electrical hazards.

Short-circuit withstand capability-Makes sure switchgear withstands those high fault conditions.

3. Type of Switchgear Configuration

The correct configuration should be selected based on the size and complexity of the project:

Fixed Type Switchgear — Cost-wise, the cheapest and most suitable for small installations.

Withdrawable Type Switchgear — Provides ease of maintenance expected for an industrial facility.

Compartmentalized Switchgear — Offers improved safety and isolation of components.

4. Energy Efficiency and Sustainability

Modern switchgear are also designed to optimize energy usage and reduce losses. Look for: Low power loss components — More efficient. Eco-friendly insulation materials — Leverage the environment. Smart grid compatibility — Include renewables.

5. Smart Features and Digitalization-

Soon after Industry 4.0 and IoT, digital switchgear became a standard. Consider: Remote monitoring and diagnostics-The predictive maintenance help. Automated fault detection-Reduced downtime, and increased safety. Data logging and analytics-Optimizes power usage.

6. Brand Reputation and After-Sales Support

Choosing a reliable brand ensures long-term performance and support. Some of the top low voltage switchgear Suppliers are:

Al Mayar Electric Switchgear Ind LLC is the new milestone in the mastering of Mayar Holding in electrical technology. The company is committed to cater quality electrical and switchgear products in Middle East, Asia, Europe & Africa ensuring high standards and reliability

Enza Electric stands out as the best manufacturer of electrical switchgear in the GCC countries, providing top-notch products that lead the market and offer reliable electrical solutions.

Al Daleel Electrical Switch Gear Trading LLC is one of the leading Supplier and Distributor of Electrical Switchgear Products in GCC.

Civaux Electric proudly stands at the forefront of electrical manufacturing, delivering a diverse range of premium products, including Panel Fans & Filters, Panel Heaters, Cabinet LED Lamps, Regulators, and Indication Lamps & Switches.

Stefan Electric based in Germany, specializes in manufacturing and distributing a wide range of switchgear products such as Current Transformers, Analog and Digital Meters, Relay and Timer Meters, and Door Limit Switches across the UAE, including Dubai, Qatar, Oman, Bahrain, Sharjah, and Saudi Arabia.

Additionally, check for:

Spare parts availability, thereby facilitating easy maintenance and repair.

Local service centers for a quick troubleshooting and support.

Warranty and possible extended service offerings would enhance long-term value.

7. Budget and Cost Considerations

The performance-to-cost trade-off is thus an important consideration. One could consider comparing:

- Initial costs versus future savings: Although more energy-efficient switchgear might entail higher initial costs, the operational expenses are going to be much lesser.

- Customization options: Some brands are more conducive to modular designs to accommodate specific budgets.

- Installation and maintenance costs: Include considerations for servicing and availability of spare parts.

#switchgear #electrical #low voltage

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kingofanemptyworld · 6 months ago

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do you have a favorite arc so far in wind breaker? the noroshii arc that just finished was very interesting and I’m excited to see where nii-sensei takes the story next, but so far my favorite arc has been the one that revealed tsubaki’s backstory. I cried like a little baby during that arc and I absolutely loved that glimpses we got into who Sakura is as a person as he learned from Tsubaki in that arc.

oh that's such a tough question. i like different arcs for different reasons. like, shishitoren is up there because it's what really got me hooked on the series (and also because i adore togame). the tsubaki/gravel arc is superb because it a) gives us more tsubaki (in a three-way tie for my favorite character), b) introduces endo and plants the seeds for the noroshi arc, and c) made the bond between nirei, suo, and sakura all the more clear.

but i think noroshi is actually my favorite arc atm. it's so revealing about how much sakura's already grown, and shows us exactly what sets him apart from umemiya -- not his perceived faults, like his lack of social skills or his temperament, but the flexibility he brought to the conflict, his willingness to forgo his pride if it meant protecting the people and the town he's come to love. the reveal that sakura called in both previous antagonists and recent allies was SO GOOD I literally screamed a little when togame and the others showed up (choji's moment especially). and umemiya's praise at the end of it, that he would have dealt with it as bofurin's problem alone and he's glad sakura had the foresight to act differently from him. like it's just. sakura strives to be umemiya, he wants to be able to be what umemiya is for the school and the town, but he doesn't realize that his own strengths as an "outsider" are what make him an appealing leader, and that he draws people in just fine without emulating umemiya all the time. ahhh i could really talk about this forever but i need to stop lmao i still have work today. thanks so much for the fun ask though!! nice distraction lmao

#king's court #wind breaker #really thank you this is so nice compared to the other messages i've been getting #kind people in fandom do exist #et cetera

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right-there-ride-on · 1 year ago

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Deciphering the Civil War Arc

I will openly admit that even on my third readthrough of SBR this is probably the arc I had the hardest time grasping. It's clearly thematically rich, but what, exactly, is it trying to say? This is my attempt to better understand what the hell is happening in this stand battle.

I'll start off with a little bit of Hot Pants and Johnny, because their parallels fascinate me.

HP revisits the idea of 'sacrifice', one of the most prominent themes in SBR (brought up even in a light way during the very early chapters, when we see Gyro must choose between what to carry with him into the race, tossing aside whatever he decides not to take.)

Notably, Johnny and Gyro just had another arc dealing with the idea of 'sacrifice': Sugar Mountain. Johnny has already sacrificed the corpse parts to save Gyro (quite a few times, actually). The difference here is that the sacrifice is no longer governed by an equivalent exchange.

We know HP began collecting the parts for the Vatican in order to try and do something that would earn them 'forgiveness' for the death of their brother. Now, under the effects of Civil War, it's shown that the 'sacrifice' of the parts (to a supposedly 'larger cause' (namely Valentine, though this could be substituted with the Pope)) demonstrably did nothing to alleviate their personal guilt. How awfully Christian. HP advises Johnny to hold on to the corpse - if giving up the corpse parts to a larger cause did nothing, then perhaps holding onto them will unlock the path to forgiveness - but before the conversation can continue HP's guilt quite literally begins to suffocate them.

We now introduce the idea of not only 'sacrifice', but 'sins' and 'purification'. Guess the Christian influences aren't only aesthetic after all.

Of course, it's 'pure water' (holy water) that can purify one's guilt (guilt being the end result of committing a sin).

Now the idea of 'sacrifice' is being correlated with the ideas of both 'sins' and 'guilt'. A sin here is, essentially, the idea of 'sacrificing' for an unworthy cause (e.g. killing someone for a selfish reason).

Chapter 56: Civil War (Part 1)

We cut to Gyro encountering Axl Ro and Civil War. These are Civil War's first words, which tells us something about the theme of the arc. The question being posed is, put simply: Are your sins ('sacrifices') worth the guilt you now carry?

SURPRISE STARPANTS PARALLELS:

HP too is seeking the corpse parts to find forgiveness (to bring their 'negative' up to 'zero'!). There are some differences worth noting: HP kept the cause of their brother's death a secret, while the cause of Nicholas' death was quite literally shouted to the entire staff by Diego. The guilt ate at them inside, so they turned to God to find forgiveness. Johnny, meanwhile, pretended not to give a fuck about anything to avoid being constantly told to his face by George that his brother's death was his fault. HP hid among the holy while Johnny drowned in debauchery. But both of them seek forgiveness and some sort of return to normalcy, which they both believe can be achieved through the corpse. Through the corpse, all 'sins' can be forgiven - even sins committed in the corpse's name (think of all the people killed in the corpse's wake, noted by Valentine in Chapter 86: Ball Breaker (Part 3) - he literally calls Johnny a sacrifice!)

HP's backstory is immediately followed by the return of Johnny's own ghosts - he himself says that he's haunted every night by his guilt, manifesting inside and outside of dreams as Danny. Yet, even though Johnny claims he can shoot it (put his guilt behind him), we see that he continues to waver. Johnny, like HP, is caught between selfishness, guilt, trauma and redemption.

Johnny's illusion via Civil War is literally Nicholas parroting back the rhetoric about his death that George and Johnny believe about Johnny himself.

Chapter 57: Civil War (Part 2)

Ok, manifestation of trauma and guilt is here. How do we beat it? Jesus Christ himself gives Johnny some extremely cryptic hints.

We'll round back to this. I'm not even sure my interpretation is correct, but hey, that's what this whole exercise is for.

'Pure water' (holy water) only works for a while. Guilt (in the form of Danny) continues to hound Johnny, while HP and Gyro are literally being suffocated by their own. Furthermore, even once Johnny confronts what he perceives to be the source of his guilt (manifested via Civil War), we see that killing Axl Ro does nothing but strengthen Civil War, because in order to 'purify' himself of his 'sins', Johnny has sinned once again (by killing selfishly). The guilt thus compounds, unloading Axl Ro's guilt onto Johnny while Axl Ro, through the 'sacrifice' of his life (generally seen as the most selfless act one can do - think Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, which I'm sure the location of this arc is a reference to), is the one actually purified.

This is not a condemnation btw I think Johnny should be allowed to kill whoever he wants.

Chapter 58: Civil War (Part 3)

Axl Ro, through the 'sacrifice' of his life - or, more accurately, through having the resolve to sacrifice his life - is the one to achieve purification. Someone committed the ultimate sin against him, leaving him 'purified'.

He even spells it out for us:

The pursuit of the corpse has caused countless casualties. Those who were 'enemies' to Johnny and Gyro were 'allies' to Valentine. It really does come down to perspective. Anyway, the point is, Civil War has now condemned Johnny as the ultimate sinner. 'His' guilt (Axl Ro's) begins to quite literally start tearing Johnny apart.

Jesus again warns Johnny:

Jesus essentially guides Johnny through his trauma, helping him understand that he’s worthy of forgiveness and thus deserving of healing - but only if he himself has the resolve to move forward (and fight for the corpse). It's quite interesting that Jesus appeared to Johnny instead of, you know, the person of faith in the next room. Could it be because, as Johnny implies in Chapter 56: Civil War (Part 1), HP hasn't 'truly' devoted themselves to God, but rather is using religion to try and alleviate their guilt (because it turns out they were not actually gathering the parts purely for the Vatican, but also for themselves)? I can't say. I'm not well enough versed in theology to even begin unpacking that. Anyway, Jesus helps Johnny understand the truth of his trauma, and the 'sins' he supposedly committed against Nicholas and his father. Prior to the confrontation with Axl Ro and his vision of Jesus, Johnny even states, "I didn't throw him away! You threw me away! You didn't even come to my races! You didn't even come to see me in the hospital when I got shot!" (Chapter 58: Civil War (Part 3))

Some part of Johnny already understood he was unfairly blamed for Nicholas' death, but that's still guilt (his greatest 'sin') that he's carried with him up until this point. His heart is wavering because some part of him doubts he's even worthy to have the corpse parts - doubts he's worthy to be forgiven. But with Jesus' final warning, Johnny finally understands that Nicholas' death is not his burden to bear, and he no longer wavers on what must be done. He resolves to complete the corpse and be 'purified', even at the 'sacrifice' of his life.

Still, we're in the middle of a stand battle. Johnny is still under the effects of Civil War, but this guilt isn't his. Axl Ro is the one running from his guilt, his sin, his sacrifices. He allowed a massacre to occur in exchange for his own life - hardly an equivalent exchange. He's in the one in possession of the corpse, but he is unworthy of it.

Axl Ro becomes so enraged at the thought of someone like Johnny touching the corpse that he 'sacrifices' Johnny in order to keep the corpse to himself - thus committing the ultimate sin and condemning himself once again.

Chapter 59: Gettysburg Dream

Johnny, however, has been purified. We see through Axl Ro's comments and panic what kind of person he really is. He looks down on Johnny, calling him 'trash' and cursing him out (while holding the Holy Corpse!) This is a common theme is Steel Ball Run. We see it with Blackmore and later Valentine too - each of them proclaims themselves the only ones worthy of the corpse. Why? Well, their goals are loftier than Johnny's, better by default simply because they claim it's for a noble cause. Their sins should be forgiven because they did it in the name of good.

Yet, from what I know of the Bible, Jesus wasn't the sort of person who would have accepted that argument. In fact, Jesus was well-known as a miracle worker and man of the people. He probably would have much preferred healing a disabled man to helping a man kill a young girl (Blackmore), aiding a Confederate soldier (Axl Ro), or making one people's superior over others simply according to which nation they belong to (Valentine).

SBR ended with the corpse locked away, everyone left alive concluding such a thing shouldn't be in the hands of anyone. So, despite Gyro and Axl Ro's protests - is Johnny threatening to destroy the corpse truly a bad thing? Does anyone really 'deserve' the corpse at all?

Should anyone truly have the power to decide who deserves to be forgiven? To decide which causes are just and which ones are not? To decide what peoples deserve the right to good fortune?

To decide who has worth and who doesn’t?

Final notes:

In the case of Nick's death, Johnny was not guilty. In the case of collecting the corpse parts and being willing to kill to keep them? A little blurrier, but by examination of the text we see that, a majority, if not all of the time, Johnny and Gyro only kill in self-defense. It's not really a 'sacrifice' (sin) then, but an equivalent exchange - someone attempted to take their lives, and that person's life was taken instead.

Notably, self-defense (or rather, the protection of another) is the same excuse Valentine uses at the end of Chapter 59: Gettysburg Dream, and we see that he is free of the effects of Civil War.

I think (and this is a pretty big I think), Civil War's themes culminate in this: You cannot earn forgiveness as long as you deceive yourself about your sins. Whether the guilt is yours or forced onto you by somebody, you need to understand it. Forgiveness will not be achieved through sacrifice and sinning, but by being able to look yourself in the mirror and be okay with what’s happened to bring you to where you are.

To put it simply, don't run from your guilt / ‘sins’ (as HP did through the church, and as Johnny did when he shot anyone but himself) and don't blame others for your mistakes / guilt (Axl Ro). The only way to be truly ‘purified’ of your guilt is to have grace with yourself and find the resolve to move forward.

Civil War, the arc and the stand, is about overcoming trauma, forgiving your mistakes and accepting redemption.

I am totally open to discussing this further, as even now I am not so sure about this conclusion. This was just my reading and I'm very open to hearing that of others!

Thank you for reading.

#i had to reread ball breaker to get a quote and i started crying #johnny joestar #hot pants #axl ro #civil war arc #steel ball run #sbr #jjba #this also doubles as my post about johnny and hp parallels btw.#araki was so wrong for not resolving hp's arc... HOW WAS IT GOING TO END??#HP and Johnny should have hung out more btw. they would be besties #dare i tag #starpants #my posts #sbr analysis #steel ball run analysis

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