#dude this is so basic compared to everything else i can do yet i love it so much

[wherearetherobots]

One of my most simple, yet most favorite drawings of mine. Drawn in 2019.

[taboo-delusion]

So, I just discovered something interesting.

This is a bit of a long one, so bear with me. It's important. Seriously.

I just woke up a few hours ago. My meds are starting to kick in. I was having a very serious and genuine, deep conversation (in-head) and it was... beautiful. It wasn't happy, but it was beautiful. Not the point.

Point is:

I had not had a single fucking intrusive thought today until someone made a noise in the other room.

I am so fucking PISSED OFF

Why my brain refuses to realize that intrusive thoughts CAUSED the good feeling to go away, I have no fucking idea. I've known that for almost a year now, yet my stupid fucking subconscious refuses to change anything it's doing

Before I snap my fucking android phone in half and yeet somebody's face into neptune, I thought I'd share the discovery!!!!

Basically:

MY INTRUSIVE THOUGHTS DID NOT START UNTIL SOMETHING STARTLED ME OUT OF FOCUS

AS I TYPE THIS, I REALIZE THAT INTRUSIVE THOUGHTS -AT LEAST FOR ADHDERS- ARE A SURVIVAL TACTIC.

Elaborating:

When you fall asleep and your heart slows too much, your body does the falling thing to make sure you're still alive.

It's not that intrusive thoughts are *Just* because your brain gets too quiet, It's because your life has never been completely quite before, or -like me- the few times it is quiet, something interrupts. And even if it doesn't piss you off, even if you don't jump like I do, your brain still registers it as not safe.

--

Falling asleep, heart slows a lot-

Body: *Sends adrenaline just to make sure it still actually works.*

Drowning, even mostly unconscious-

Body and brain: *Hold onto that last half-breath even if it feels like you're head is going to explode.*

Going grocery shopping or talking to someone you think is cool-

Brain: *Remembers what it felt like the first time your guardian was indifferent or mean about something that made you happy or calm.*

Things around you actually get quiet-

Brain *Sends a thought you hate just to make sure you're prepared for a sudden problem.*

TDLR 1: Your brain isn't mean on purpose, It's just paranoid and still has a will to live.

Listen. I know I'm just some random dude from a weird blog. But I'm trying to translate, to assist. Maybe somebody else needs this realization as much as I do. I apologize for the yelling earlier. I'm still just as upset, but only at my dumbass subconscious. Now some time has passed, and I have regained self-control.

(I also apologize for the above paragraph, my brain nags for me to do this, but I can't remember why. So:)

I am no psychologist. Here are my qualifications (why you should listen to me):

As my friends call it- "Disturbingly self-aware at all times."

Paranoid Schizophrenic with actual (unrelated) OCD, with years of experience dealing with it- more healthily in recent years.

Philosophy and deep thinking is simply my default. I use metaphors, but everything in this post is entirely literal, ...except the angry threat. (*begrudgingly accepts disappointment*)

I am a fiction writer. I don't know about healing people/first aid, but I know a LOT about how anatomy works, with many deep-dives on the psychology/evolution side.

People irl generally consider me a genius? Idk how to gauge that, IQ tests are irrelevant with this type of... smart?. I've been compared to both Da Vinci and Einstein. So, ...actually that's pretty fuckin' cool- (I AM NOT TRYING TO BRAG! I APOLOGIZE IF IT COMES OFF THAT WAY! I've never put it all down like this, and I'm just surprised and questioning my reputation.)

(Also, I love playing detective, so naturally I call myself Batman XD.)

Autistic; I experience the world, and every situation, from a view without any context.

ADHD: My brain automatically -As a guardian I hate describes- "Can watch three different movies at the same time, all in fast forward, and can keep up with all of them." ... Well, yes, but technically no. Idk if other ADHD people do this, but my brain "connects the dots" so quickly, I end up laughing at jokes I've never heard before the 'punchline', because I've already figured out what you're going to say next.

Now combine all that. I am kicking depression's ass and now I want to help you do the same.

I have only mentioned the relevant things. Please keep in mind that ALL of these have both advantages and disasters. Thank you for your patience and understanding. I am running on four hours of sleep. For the love of whatever, I hope this actually helps someone other than me.

Qualifications are noted because: This is all stuff (and stuff like this) that I am just always casually aware of.

TLDR2: Even if I wasn't trying to help people feel better, Apparently I was born with a nat 20 perception/insight check, so please don't argue that I truly understand what I'm talking about here.

[horizon-verizon]

https://www.tumblr.com/evebestthinker/751366825102770176/the-way-he-looks-at-her-as-if-no-one-else?source=share

It's funny that their relationship is so romanticized. Whether by showrunners or even people in general.

Corlys and Rhaenys in the original material have a bigger age difference than Daemyra, yet no one talks about grooming.

Rhaenys, from what I remember, certainly chose Corlys, but Rhaenyra also chose Daemon and everyone prefers to say that she was groomed to want her sexy old uncle... 🙄

The fact is that, apart from this age difference, Corlys only wanted Rhaenys to be queen for her own person and the name of her house, let's be realistic. And in Fire and Blood, it was actually Laenor and not Rhaenys who was actually proposed to the throne with Viserys.

Unlike Daemon, Corlys has also always shown a genuine interest in the throne, whether in HOTD or Fire and Blood. This guy fights for power and always goes against his wife's wishes in general.

Yet they are supposedly a great relationship ? A great marriage of love ? A couple goal ? People's double standards are astounding to me.

I will add that Corlys, aged 60 in Fire and Blood, is having sex, from what I remember, with a girl under 16 or in that age range it seems to me. In any case, a close age that Rhaenys was when he married her at the time, showing that he has a type of age range for women, unlike Daemon who in Fire and Blood was with women of varying ages.

So basically the directors of HOTD said to themselves that Corlys and Rhaenys would make a superb love story ? WTF seriously ? They keep talking about Daemyra's age difference but obviously it's only a problem when it's them and not the others.

Actually, what I'm trying to say is that... most of the criticisms leveled at Daemon : Bad father, bad husbands, way too old for his ultimate wife, power-hungry, throne-seeking, loving the girls are rather young... Well it's actually Corlys who ticks all the boxes. Show and or Book.

Disclaimer: This is to note the discrepancy that fandom does when it tries to bring up age differences, how biased people are towards Daemon. You can look to la-pheacienne's notes about GRRM and age differences HERE, where we talk abt Doylist vs Watsonian readings of GRRM's storytelling and over age diff creepiness vs what story the dude is telling in-world.

It mimics how people will say "Targs are colonizers" and then they ignore what the Westerosi did to the giants and twstsote/children of the forest. There's a clear bias and lack of reading being done, because yeah I agree. Like, Corlys is an impressive man, but that has little to do with this conversation topic. (For all who don't know, Corlys was 37 when 16-yr old Rhaenys chose him as her husband; Rhaenyra was born in 97, Daemon in 81; RhaneysxCorlys has a 21 diff, Daemyra has a 16 diff)

In the show, it makes way less sense as to why Rhaenys & Corlys are together. I did a TikTok abt it, but here it is:

Rhaenys has constantly said that she considers a "good" leader AND [good] person to be one who goes out of their way to avoid violence, war, or great conflicts. Someone who takes measures to make sure their own actions do not lead to conflicts that may hurt even more than themselves. Even at the cost of one's own political advantages. She values what HotD has implied is "self-restraint" & defends Rhaenyra from Corlys' saying everything is her fault [specifically by reasoning that out of all the men who are there, Rhaenyra is the one who is trying to not go to war or any battle]. She is also supposed to care very much for her daughter, Laena, and her own grandchildren through her. Supposedly above Corlys' interests (episodes 6-7). Compare this to Corlys' self-interest evidenced by his pushing for a Velaryon-marriage through his 12 year old daughter & keeping Lucerys as his heir DESPITE the would-have-been-clear discontent from Vaemond abt the Driftmark succession PLUS how the Velaryon boys wete not his grandkids biologically AND Rhaenys advis[ing] him to name [their] granddaughters instead. With every value and action these two take for & against their family and against the other's desires….For what the HotD writers & whoever responsible wrote for these two…. Why do we believe that this ship is one of the best ones --or even makes logical sense-- to earn the reputation of being one of the best during this part of ASoIaF history?! The [show]relationship doesn't stand up on its own without the looks & performances of its actors. It also gets away with the nonsensical dynamic in two other things:

the constant defense of "two canons"

the many time jumps that remove any possibility for us or the writers to show us how these two actually like each other & continue to like each other

Once again, Daemon was never a good person, but he is also not what is depicted in HotD and grooming does not = DV. they are not the same, thus you do not have to include DV with grooming by saying it "eventually" happens with groomers. Espe when GRRM has a track record for just stating abuse when it happens (Jaehaerys with Alysanne, her pushed to keep giving birth; Robert Baratheon with Cersei):

[yokakaiju]

tristamp thoughts/live watch ramblings

preface: i already have a very bad impression of tristamp. i literally have been into trigun for maybe a week now and i have seen most of 1998, but im trying to go into tristamp with a clear head and view it objectively, but i genuinely looked at the character designs and legatos redesign made me resent it immediately tbh...

ANYWAY, im live watching as i write this, so apologies if its sporatic

okay so the good stuff so far

uhh... its very pretty!!! ill give it that. it really shows the evolution of 3d anime over time, and as someone who typically doesnt enjoy it i think tristamp is absolutely beautiful. first 3d anime i ever saw was knights of sidonia and i have a deep appreciation for where 3d anime is now compared to a decade ago

i kinda like meryls new design the best? i like her hat, its cute. everyone else is so... eh, tho. merylls redesign is chill with me tho

roberto is fine ig. i like old men characters sometimes and like, idk whenever im not sad abt milly not being here im okay enough with roberto existing

now on to my ever growing laundry list of complaints that ik will get worse if i keep watching (spoilers for trimax probably)

one, WHY IS VASH LIKE THAT?? LIKE WHY IS HE SUCH A WHINY CRYBABY?? LIKE SHUT UP DAWG!!! idk, ik vash is a silly emotionally explosive highly insecure funny little fella and i love him for it, i think vash is a great character, but why did they make him kinda a pathetic bitch in stamp? like, i usually dont watch dubs but i am for trigun cause my tv is kinda far from my bed and i dont wanna sit uncomfortably to read subs rn (BLEH!!!), so maaaaaaaybe sub vash is better, and no shade to the va i like his voice a lot for vash tbh, but bro pls stop crying every two seconds im gonna lose it. why is vash lowkey proslavery (THIS IS A JOKE), BUT FR!!! why is he more like... idk chill with plants being used ig ????? im sure hes not really, but like... dude, you arent the same

two, okay this made me actually mad, but why in the actual fuck was knives immediately introduced and why is he like some weird well known plant stealing cave hermit??? like??? no??? he wouldnt do that??? also why is he so present in this world LIKE DOES LOST JULY NOT EXIST IN THIS CANON??? WHAT IS THIS??????? i literally hate this rewrite. like... trimax is right there dawg... you did not have to rewrite literally everything. addition as i watch episode 3, why is he like that? why can he make purple? why does he have razors??? he doesnt talk like that ever??? why is he so??? i hate him actually??? this is not the knives ik and love??? who is this skinwalker????? HE DID NOT ACT LIKE THIS IN TRIMAX WHO IS THIS??? I REFUSE TO BELIEVE THEY REWROTE KNIVES THIS WAY OH MY GOD

three, why did everyone get an objectively bland redesign? like... i dont mind vashs hair. idgaf, but i literally hate his fucking totk link "lost power source" green ass arm. why cant it just be an ugly brown robot arm with a gun in it. whys it gotts be all "cool" and "green" and "mysterious", like IT DOES NOT HAVE TO BE CYBERCORE TECHWEAR NEOFUTURISM ASS SHIT!!! i havent seeeeeeen wolfwoof in action yet, but i fucking hate his tristamp design. WHY IS HE A TWINK??? WHERE ARE HIS BOOBS??? WHY IS HE NOT A PRIEST??? LITERALLY TURNED A PERFECT CHARACTER INTO A BASIC BITCH FOR NO REASON. also like... knives. why is he... why is he like that. put shoes on plz the sand is hot babygirl. why are you wearing a tumour coat and ugly matrix ass bodysuit? where did your shoulderpadded objectively cooler dio-esque military outfit go? especially tho, i DESPISE legato and livios redesigns. i think they are SOOOOO butt ugly in tristamp and FOR WHY??? WHY DID THEY MAKE LEGATO SO FUCKING UGLY??? LIKE HE WAS SO HOT IN 98 AND ESPECIALLY IN TRIMAX OH MY GOD HES SO HOT LITERALLY DROOLING THINKING ABT HIM RN MY BABYWABY BOOBOO BEAR. THEY BUTCHERED HIM SO BAD AND IT PISSES ME OFF SO MUCH!!! AND LIVIO OH MY GOD WHY DID THEY DO THAT TO HIM??? HIS TRIMAX DESIGN IS OS FUCKING PEAK HE IS SO AMAZING AS AN EYE OF MICHAEL AND ESPECIALLY AFTER HE REFORMS AND BECOMES A COWBOY BABEYYY!!!! BUT NOOOO THEY MADE HIM AN UGLY ASS CYBERPUNK ASS BITCH!!! THEY MADE HIM SO FUCKING LAME AND BORING!!! PATOOEY I HATE HIS FUCKING DESIGN!!!! okay so wolfwood just showed up, can officially say hes the weakest version of wolfwood and that i do not like him. hes giving non sonic fan perception of shadow vibes. ALSO WHERE IS HIS MELANIN THEY TOOK IT AWAY!!! THE MELANIN VACCUM STRIKES AGAIN!!! tbf, he didnt have MUCH but he was a little brown, not literally just a white man

four, where. the. fuck. is. milly. i LOVE milly. she is one of my faves ever, im so sad she isnt here. genuinely...

five and probably last for rn, why is the pacing so bad. like its not good in trigun or trimax really, and especially bad in 1998, but it SO ASS!!! like its so blink and you'll miss it, which kinda stands for every trigun... but expected this to be like at least a liiiiittle better i dunno

conclusions: im gonna keep watching it maybe? but like... i dont like it. its bad imo. literaly have been into trigun for one week and am in mourning that trimax will likely never have a proper adaptation. i just wanna see angel knives in his full glory, not whatever tf tristamp is trying to push here

[demetriandelibinaryboyfriends]

Pride Month Character Sexuality Headcanon Moodboards 1. Yasmine - Lesbian 2. Demetri Alexopoulos - Gay 3. Moon - Bisexual 4. Eli "Hawk" Moskowitz - Bisexual

Next up is everyone's favorite Demetri Alexopoulos-obsessed slightly evil predatory bird boy, Eli "Hawk" Moskowitz! Unlike with Demetri, I am fully aboard the Bisexual Eli Express. Justice for bi guys!!! We need more in media because it is in fact sexy and valid to like dick AND boobs!!!

Now, quick disclaimer that there is not a single mlw Eli ship that I personally fuck with in the least. I've been pretty loud about the reasons for my immense distaste of H*wkM**n, and could in fact write a 20 or so page essay on why they're one of my all-time NoTPs if prompted. Furthermore, my first impulse upon seeing any other female character paired with Eli (or...really, any character who isn't Demetri, or possibly Miguel in extremely specific circumstances) is to keep said pairing approximately 491263844976 feet away from me. BUT, despite my personal feelings of revulsion upon seeing Eli paired with anyone who isn't his soulmate Demetri Alexopoulos, I fully believe Eli is bisexual and that there's plenty of textual evidence to support this!

So let's dive in!

The first thing that comes to mind is how Eli vents to his mom in the 2x05 flashback about how he's "never going to get a girlfriend." Granted, as I've mentioned in some other posts, high school dating is often more about social status (i.e. being seen as "desirable" enough to get an SO makes you more popular) than genuine romantic attraction. BUT Eli voicing his concerns to someone he clearly trusts more than most people indicates to me that he wants a girlfriend more than just for show--he's attracted to girls.

I have a friend who since moved on from the fandom who did autistic analyses of Eli, and pointed out that he's often uncomfortable with eye contact. Pre-Hawk, the only two people we see him make consistent eye contact with are Demetri and his mom. This seems like a pretty good indication that these are the two people he trusts the most, and can most honestly "bare his soul" and be himself around. Another reason I think his vent to his mom about worrying he's never going to have the experience of dating a girl has authenticity to it. I can't compare this to Demetri's interactions with his mom, unfortunately (and it's a damn shame!!! I demand to see Ms. Alexopoulos in S6!!!), but I can say for certain that Eli has expressed wanting a girlfriend from a (presumably) vulnerable and honest place, while S1 Demetri only ever seems to do so performatively.

As previously established, there is no bigger H*wkM**n loather than I. I make no secret of this. HOWEVER!!! I feel like it'd be naive--and maybe even dumb--to pretend that there isn't at least some physical attraction there. Granted, they're definitely emotionally incompatible in a way I wish the show had the balls to actually address (like how the fuck is a pacifist gonna last in a relationship with a dude who loves fighting more than just about everything else lmao), but I can buy they find each other physically (and probably sexually) attractive. Moon basically says as much when she's dumping Eli in S2! They very much strike me as one of those teenage couples who are all over each other 90% because of hormones. I'd say the main difference between them and Dem and Yas is that the performative aspect doesn't seem to be there. While Dem and Yas feel like they're putting on a show, it seems like Hawk and Moon really were just that horny.

So throughout S2, we see Hawk treat Moon in kind of a possessive way, and more as arm candy to make him look good than as her own person (yet another reason I am such a Hater lmao). Despite this, he spends so much time in S3 and S4 moping over her and pining for her that I do think they had somewhat of an emotional connection, even if it was pretty surface-level. I still think their relationship was mostly based on looks and social status, but him being that hung up on winning her back (a frankly unhealthy thing that should not have been narratively rewarded btw) instead of just moving on to some other hot girl who'd give him the time of day indicates that Moon was more than just a beard.

So like. I feel like if you weren't convinced that Eli has feelings for Demetri, you wouldn't be reading a post written by tumblr user demetriandelibinaryboyfriends XD But to briefly summarize: Eli spends much of the show shooting Demetri Yearning Looks and being the only one amused by his antics. Even when they're falling out, Eli is borderline obsessive about harassing Demetri when he could just ignore him and focus on his Cool New Karate Friends. He often seeks Demetri out in fights in a way that feels pretty damn fruity. He's pretty physically affectionate with Demetri, and never seems to mind when Dem is physically affectionate with him (to the point of near cuddling in S4). This is...unusual for teenage boys, to say the least! Oftentimes even the straight ones are so terrified of being perceived as gay that they're super stingy about all but the most "no homo" type of physical affection. The fact that Dem and Eli pretty liberally put their arms around each other and give each other little gestures of physical affection makes me think that they've been in a homoerotic friendship so long that they like. Don't even realize it comes across as kinda gay??? Like Miguel and Demetri are physically affectionate too, but it's much more casual and doesn't feel as intense.

Also worth a mention that Eli is literally simping for Demetri so hard that he joins Demetri's karate dojo right after being terribly traumatized and deciding to quit karate. Why??? Because Demetri said some encouraging things to him, cuddled him on a couch, and basically confessed his love by being like "hey I'll always care about you no matter how you wear your hair or what name you go by." This man is whipped as fuck. His actor basically confirmed he won the championship for Demetri! And lest we forget, the final push that got him to betray the dojo he'd previously devoted his entire life to--also led by a dangerous war criminal sure not to take betrayal lightly, might I mention--was seeing Demetri in danger. Eli "Hawk" Moskowitz is in fact Down Bad.

So I'm not a big fan of the migu/eli ship for reasons I don't want to get into here, but imo it's completely possible Eli had feelings for Miguel at some point (I just don't think they were ever reciprocated because Miguel is in love with Sam!). He definitely idolizes Miguel and puts him on a kind of "coolness" pedestal that feels like it could easily be romantic. He also gets so obsessed with avenging Miguel that he breaks the arm of the other guy he has a crush on, so...there's also that!

Come to think of it, there are actually some really interesting parallels between the Miguel/Eli and Moon/Eli relationships. Both are kind of a case of Eli getting really enamored with this idealized idea/concept he has of a person and getting so wrapped up in that that he has a fundamental misunderstanding of and neglects the actual person's wants and needs. Hence why he's so confused when Moon and Miguel tell him they don't want him in their lives if he's going to be an ass--this isn't how the doe-eyed ever-adoring hot girlfriend and stone-cold, super aggressive badass bestie he built up in his head were supposed to react! Why are they acting like independent people with agency who don't conform to the versions of themselves in Eli's fantasies???

(This is also why I think Demetri's the healthiest and most sensible romantic partner for Eli btw. Eli doesn't idealize and borderline deify Demetri the way he does for other people he has feelings for/seems to have feelings for. He's known Dem so long that we can reasonably extrapolate any feelings that developed were based in the Demetri that was actually there, and not a fictional version he built up in his mind. In fact, it almost seems like Demetri knows Eli has a tendency to do this and won't let Eli project an untrue version of Demetri onto the real guy. That might be why Demetri staunchly refused to change himself to go along with Eli's karate shenanigans in early S2--he was basically saying "I am who I am, and I refuse to become this impossibly glorified image you're projecting onto me." And I can't blame him--I actually get really annoyed when people try to put me on a pedestal, and will often go out of my way to break their illusion that I'm whatever perfect, wholesome box they try to shove me in XD Bottom line being that between Moon, Miguel, and Demetri, I think Demetri has the healthiest relationship with Eli because it's, at the end of the day, the most honest and doesn't hinge on any untrue and unfair projections.)

At the end of the day though!!! The fact that Eli is able to separately idealize both a guy and a girl and both in a pretty romantic or romantic-coded way is pretty damning proof to me that he is in fact bisexual! Look, not all bisexuals process their feelings in healthy ways okay aiksjuuhfkdhg

He dyes his hair ALL THE DAMN BISEXUAL FLAG COLORS. And on the order they're on the flag, too??? Red (S2 - S3) to purple (S4) to dark blue (S5)??? Fucking wild. If this was a fanfiction I would joke about it being too on-the-nose, BUT NO. THIS IS CANON MATERIAL IN THE SHOW.

Okay, I'm sorry, but. NO non-queer dude dyes his hair bright-ass colors like that. Red or blue maaaaybe, but PURPLE??? NO. Straight men simply do not dye their hair purple. Like speaking as an LGBT I'm here to tell you that in the community, brightly colored hair (but especially more "flamboyant," girly colors like purple or pink) basically a signal that says "hey, I am also queer!" ESPECIALLY if you're a dude. Straight girls dyeing their hair bright-ass colors is more common, but I have never known a single straight guy to. And that's because it's associated with being gay af.

Also I can't tell you the amount of times they've put this dude in bisexual lighting. The ones I can think of off the top of my head are S2 Valley Fest and the S3 arm break, but I'm sure there are more I'm forgetting. Demetri is there both the times I mentioned. Hmmmm.

Took some liberties with the bisexual flag in this moodboard to better fit Eli's vibe...and also like. These are literally the three colors he dyes his hair in canon. I had to XD

I'm still not over that btw aksjdkhuef like it's so bisexual it's PAINFUL

I really like how this one came out <3 Hopefully I was able to capture the full scope of technonerd, avian motifs, and that one S3 angerboi I-want-to-punch-everything-and-everyone arc!

Btw the top middle picture is just supposed to be neon fire because our boi is Fiery™️, but then I realized it...kind of also looks like a mohawk??? So kudos to me for the accidental character accuracy XD

Okay so. Would you believe I have several more of these that I didn't have the chance to post? ^^; I uh. Guess I'll have to make July Pride Month 2.0 and post them then XD This is what happens when I'm too overambitious in my shitposts, eh?

As always, pic credits available upon request!

[fukuwatchesbl]

OFTS thoughts (- I don’t have a title)

Here, I’ll talk about the characters and their relationships. I’m not really trying to analyze them, it’s more about how I perceive them so far (as of episode 3).

First, let me get it out of my system, but I don’t think there’s a clear villain in this show, nor a mastermind. I think we’re supposed to take the characters (mostly) as they’re presented, with blatant flaws. If these characters are dishonest, it’s mainly with themselves or with each other, not with the audience.

1. The core friendship

From the start, Cheum, Boston, Ray and Mew’s friendship felt off to me, but in retrospect, more than off, it’s imperfect. While this can read as a euphemism after last Saturday, there are scenes with both working and broken bonds between them. The good: making sure everyone gets home, Boston and Ray's go-to person being Mew (in ep1: Boston gives his number to Nick for his phone repair, Ray calls him right after exiting Sand’s flat), Mew 2nd go-to person is Ray (but only after he met Top), the way they know who will not do the assignment and who is good with each part of the job. The bad: Boston throwing under the bus both Ray and Mew to get Top, the peer pressure to lose one's virginity, their teacher foreshadowing comments…

Honestly, if it wasn’t for Boston’s unhinged behaviour, their friendship might have a chance to last. (it still might)

2. But that’s not Boston.

Boston looks everyone down, and what he wants, he gets. He doesn’t mind twisting the truth (Top) or gaslighting people around (Nick). He’s also someone who sees everything through the lens of sex. His value is established by the number of partner he has, by how they want to come back for more, and how he had them first and can get them back whenever.

It looks like this lens might also impact his assumptions about others’ relationships. While we now know for a fact Mew and Ray kissed, I highly doubt they had sex. But, at this point, I feel Boston sincerely believe they did. Maybe he saw them getting together in a room. And what else could they have done together if not fuck? This is why Boston keeps looking at them with suspicion. He thinks they’re lying/hiding/hypocrites, but HE sees them, HE is no dupe.

3. Mew the virgin

I wouldn’t be surprised if Mew ended up being demisexual. But, let's talk about how so many of us see him as mastermind, and... I don't. Or, at least, not yet.

Did he make sure their school project would secure his future? Yes, I agree with this. It's his idea, and he's aware how much Ray cares for him, and, to some extant, he's profiting from it. Did he take top's 3-months-limit as a form of challenge? Probably (unless he's demi, then the scene take a slightly different tone). BUT, that's it. I strongly believe the rest can be taken at face value.

Well... until he'll decide to confront Top about cheating on him. Because, then we get to this (I think):

And I still don't know if that smile is Mew feeling reassured, knowing he has the upper hand in their relationship, or planning revenge.

4. Top, a much frailer top-tier

Not gonna lie, I love his character. He looks like a basic (wo)manizer at first, but he's showing some cracks that make me want to know more. Of all the characters, he is one of the most adjusted when comparing who he thinks he is and who he says he is. But that doesn't always mean he lets others see all parts of him.

He had zero problem sharing his childhood trauma with Mew or openly taking sleeping pills, but whatever that dude, Beam, is to him is out of line. And Beam stating he knows Top both in and out of bed? What do you mean OUT?

Also, that clip of his confrontation with Mew (see above), shows Top crying. Do I think Top and Mew are opposites? Maybe. I mean: Mew is reserved, sexless, composed, while Top is in-the-open (mostly), sexfull, emotive. And gosh are we going to see emotions from Top next week. His carefully worked façade is falling in favor of anger and jealousy. Mostly (and wrongly) directed at Sand.

5. Sand, the only really adjusted person?

Well, adjusted only if you consider the men, because so far the women are rocking it better than everybody else. But he has his shit together at least. No trauma in view, very done with bullshit in general, discreet where needed (did you sleep with Boston??), know his own value...

Honestly, the only mystery is what happened between him and Top. Like some others, I feel there must be another person in between them. My wild theory is it's Cheum's lil bro 🤡🤡🤡

6. Atom, who the fuck are you?

Atom, played by Title Kirati, is Cheum little brother. He just got introduced in the last episode, but I have no idea how he connects to the rest of the story (thus my wild theory). We know he's a comm arts student (a link to Nick?). The reason I think he'll impact, in some way, the story is his presence in the opening credits and 1 micro-second in the trailer.

7. Nick, stalker with gentle heart

To be fair, Nick is not the only character with stalker behaviour. Boston shows it with his habit of taking pictures of his lovers in intimate moments, and the picture of Ray/Mew's kiss. Ray also who follows Sand, and Mew who admits he could very much go pry in his lover's phone given the chance.

But Nick is not the poor bunny we thought he is. His stalker behaviour is present from the start with the invasion of privacy on Boston's phone, which would be illegal in many countries, and now the taping of Boston's car (illegal too). But there's also the cameras he suggests to Boston for their pool party. No one was asking for video and sound recording, but he suggested it as if it was perfectly normal. (btw, did Drake use this kind of camera? Could we get both revenge porn and/or commercial sex tapes?)

8. Ray, he'll break some heart, his or yours, or both

So, where do I start here. By the obvious? Falling out of love is complicated, it’s a process partly built on bad habits. Sometimes, you might even start falling in love again before being fully done with said process. I think this is happening to Ray. But I also think Ray has been lying to others for so long to hide the true extent of his pain, that he has difficulties acknowledging the burgeoning feelings he has for Sand. There’s a reason why both Mew and Yo perceive them better than he does.

There are other things to mention about him. The drinking issue, the call to mental health lack of care, his blackouts habit. And that one is really an habit that has found him waking up in random people beds with no memory of what happened in the night. He didn't go presuming he and Sand had sex that very first night out of nowhere. I'm not gonna lie, it scares me that this can be someone's real life experience. It brings back that time when a coworker told me that really I should have a blackout once (on purpose): "it's a great experience". "Great" said with no sarcasm nor joking tone. It still gives me the chill.

Anyway, I'll stop here, sadly I have not much to say about the women in the series. I wish they were more present, and as messy as their male counterparts, but that doesn't look like it'll be the case. The writers and directors are focusing specifically on mlm experiences, something as intimate to them as to the main characters.

[theknightmarket]

I did a tier list of the Markiplier Egos, so I thought I’d share it here – and, yes, perhaps some of these ratings indicate who I like to write, sue me. So, bottom to top, here it is:

Actor: Super Hell

         I goddamn hate Actor, as you could probably figure out. He’s a prissy bitch, who deserved everything that came to him. Okay, that might’ve been a bit of an exaggeration, but Jesus Christ do I hate him, mainly for causing Damien’s death, plus everything else, but mainly that. He deserves less than Super Hell, but that is the bottom of the barrel.

E-Boy Mark: F

         Reminded me too much of my boy Bing, and I did Not like it. Plus, I have the same tiger pattern on one of my jackets, and I did not want to be associated with this E-Boy. So, F tier.

Ed Edgar: F

         I hate babies. Simple as that. Props for being a cowboy aesthetic, but that mustache knocked him back down into F tier.

Derek Derekson: F

         Need I say anything? He’s abusive and a bitch, and I care too much about my baby Eric to put him any higher. I would put him lower, but Super Hell is reserved for Actor. F.

Silver Shephard: E

         I haven’t seen anything about him, except for the skit with all the other egos, in which I also did not see much. Cool costume, but no clue. E.

Dr. Iplier: E

         Again, not much. To be honest, both of the Egos in the E tier are ones I haven’t seen much of but know about. Hence, the doctor is here. Nice catchphrase, E tier.

Yandereiplier: D

         The animation is cool, I’ve always liked horror-blood elements, and the pictures of Yandere have the red hair, which I am a fan of. However, the game itself is a point down, and he is only for the sim, so D tier.

King of the Squirrels: D

         A classic start to the Ego train, so points given, but points taken away because I am not a huge fan of peanut butter. Squirrels I love, though, so again. Hence, D tier.

Bill: C

         Okay, so I haven’t seen the video he comes from actually, but I did see one clip of him saying ‘Oh, honey, no’ and, boy, did I feel flustered, and I don’t even know why! It was just weirdly sweet and reflects the kinda stuff you see in my S tiered Egos. But, alas, he’s not all that common in videos, so C.

Bim Trimmer: C

         I don’t know either, man, he’s just a funny guy. The image I have for him is so stupid, and he’s Bim Trimmer??? C’mon. C tier.

The Colonel: C

         Being separate from Wilford, he’s kinda lacking in substance compared to him, but I get it. Cuckolded a dude, which isn’t a great start, but it’s Actor, so I don’t care. Says ‘bully’, which is fun, but he does kill the viewer, so points off for him, putting him in C.

Google(s): C

         Might be influenced by my having a fic in the works for him, but I am also a sucker for AI, android stuff. Plus, the fanart I see for him is always cute. Him being rude to Bing takes him down a notch, though, so C.

Heehoo: C

         The concept of this guy is so funny to me – like, Jesus Christ, the Markiplier runs into the wild, completely naked, save for maybe shoes, of all things, and is fine??? The long hair pushes it over D, but the lack of a voice keeps him in C.

The Nightguard: C

         It’s mainly for the musical itself, and that one moment when he leans in and says ‘I killed a guy’ because obviously. Not to mention it’s Mark singing. However, this one can be excluded from being an ego because it is basing off of a pre-established character. So, C tier.

Captain Magnum: C

         I haven’t gone through his ending yet in AHWM (sue me, I got Yancy first), but I do love pirates ;) but I don’t love beards. Personal preference, it just takes away from the face. Basically, the aesthetic alone brings it into C tier.

Annus: B

         Now, I did watch, uh, [redacted] – catch my favorite video being the A.I generated basically fanfictions – and I loved the whole concept of it! The ending, especially during covid, kinda helped me get used to death and the idea of having to die in the end. However, some of this does not extend to the ego of Annus. I feel like there was a lot more they could have done with both Annus and Unus, but I understand that most of the audience would not have wanted it to be fully cryptid and ARG-esque, so B is both the lowest and highest I can go with him. I do love suits, though. 

Eric Derekson: B

         I have seen next to nothing about this boy! And I love him :D! He’s just so cute in everything I’ve seen and read. Solid B tier for the cute side, anyway. 

The Jims: B

         Honestly, it’s a goof ego, and I like that. The stupid movements and the little side bit about WKM made me happy after the sad events, and I saw them in Space, so I’m happy to put them at B, as a collective, of course.

Monster Gulch Mark: B

         I’m a sucker for apocalypses, man. The casual murder plot caught my eye, and then the second song was a banger, too. I was super disappointed when nothing ever came out from Monster Gulch again, and I appreciate the running water thing, if you know what I mean by that. So, for both Mark in this and the musical in general, B tier.

God of Night: B

         Dope aesthetic and I am a sucker for deity-stuff. However, I do not have the attention span to watch a 3+ hour video where he is not in all of it, and was, maybe, recorded without a hard script? I don’t know, but I know I should watch it considering I have a fic queued for him. Cool concept, but I can’t watch so much of that in one go. B tier.

Noir: A

         You remember that I said I love suits, right? Well, this guy, in a disheveled suit, the noir aesthetic – one that I loved since I saw Into the Spider-Verse – and the voice over??? A tier, and I will take no comments. Also, there’s something to be said about how the lower tiers tend to have the cocky-know-it-all egos, and the higher tiers are soft guys. This, the A tier, is a weird exception.

Murdock: A

         No. 1, the murder – no. 2, the vibe – no. 3, the outfit! The moment I saw Murdock, I had to put the screen down and go for a walk. You’ve seen this man, you understand what I mean. A tier, for everything he’s involved in.

Dark: A

         This is probably lower than a lot of people would put him, and I’m still debating putting him higher, but A tier is the least I will go. Again, there’s the suit, plus, I’m a fan of the glitchy, multi-emotion thing he has going on. However, as many of you will remember, he did shove the viewer into a mirror and steal their body. Not great on his part, but he is against Actor, and the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Hence, A tier, plus he does stage himself sexily on that desk, so…

Engineer: A

         This guy is plain cute. He’s devoted, he’s hard-working, he appreciates the aesthetics! He really should be in A+ tier, considering I have a sticker of him, too, except for one tiny snag. Actor. He is the source of all my trouble and complicates things in the theory sense. Is Engineer actually Actor? We don’t know, and I don’t like to think I would put anyone related to Actor in A+. So, sorry, my dear boy, he has to be in A tier.

Bing: A+

         If you’ve seen my other posts, you may already understand why he’s here, but I will reiterate for every who doesn’t know. I don’t know what it is, but the dumb, skateboarder-bro, with a heart of gold is a thing I love. The glasses are cool, the orange I adore, and an android? C’mon, I can’t put him anywhere but A+. (I also have a sticker of him on the laptop I am currently writing this on)

Host: A+

         I had to go searching for Host after the sketch with all of the egos in it, and, boy, was I overjoyed to find him. The blind-fold and narrator bit, and a couple of fics I’ve read influenced this decision. A+ tier, but it’s a controversial one. (Another that I have a sticker of)

Wilford: A+

         Yeah, this is just where he belongs. S tier is reserved for two egos here, and so Wilford is a banger in A+ tier. The whole fruity-bisexual-timelord thing is amazing, and, as far as character design goes, oof, the fluffy hair, slightly unbuttoned shirt? I am swooning. A+ tier. (Also, a sticker)

Illinois: A+

         This guy has two belts. What a dude. And the flirty thing I appreciate, the whip cracks, as well. Him walking backwards through a bunch of traps is pique douche, but in an oh-my-god-he’s-going-to-get-himself-killed-better-help-him kind of way. Like pulling a drowning dog out of a pool and them shaking off. A+.

Can you guys guess who’s at the top of this list? If you can’t, lemme tell you. 

Damien: S

         Damien is my comfort character, and that sucks because – spoilers – he is dead. I forgive him for shoving the viewer into a mirror, solely for his adorable personality and all of the fics people have for him prior to poker night. The ‘little monster’ nickname has me squealing every time I hear it, and I could fully write an essay on his character. Fuck Actor for killing him, and fuck anyone who doesn’t think he’s amazing. Solid S tier, no questions. 

Yancy: S

         Objectively the best character. He was my first ending in AHWM, I love his song, he applied for parole??? Look at that man, listen to him talk – the accent omg – and tell me, genuinely, that you would not do anything for him. Look me in the eyes and tell me that he isn’t the light of your life. ‘Free as a buird’ – gods, he’s adorable, and a sticker that I have on the inside of my laptop, to boot!

And that’s it! Feel free to reblog or send me an ask telling me your opinion, but know that I will fight you if you disagree on my S tiers :D

Have a good day everyone!

[miraculouscontent]

“Sentibubbler” summary? “Sentibubbler” salt?

Why not both at the same time?

Something a little experimental, though also somewhat reminiscent of some of my past videos. Calling it “summasalt” for now, based on the word “somersault” because this episode was an exercise of my patience.

It’s basically just me going through the episode with my usual episode summary, but salting along the way instead of making you guys read a wall of text without any images or clips or me making snarky comments.

(By the way, yes, I did in fact have caffeine before recording.)

script below for anyone who wants/needs it:

"Sentibubbler" begins with Marinette having food with the Cesaires and I already know this isn't real because Marinette is actually getting to interact with her best friend's family. That's only happened, like--when, two episodes of Season 2? [”Sapotis” and “Anansi”]

Marinette sees Trixx and points out how they're supposed to be a secret, and Alya asks why while calling Marinette "Ladybug." Marinette plays dumb but is told by Nino that everyone already knows her secret. Chloe is also there, chiding Marinette for her identity rule - it's not Marinette's rule but after "Reflekdoll" I've just gotten used to Marinette being blamed for things she didn't do - and Marinette goes to question Chloe's apperance when there's a knock on the balcony door. Alya invites Shadow Moth in and--[Shadow Moth has to duck to come inside]--huh, I thought Sole Crusher was seven episodes ago.

Anyway, now obviously, Marinette is just being ridiculous and overemotional as usual, because why would Marinette ever think that Alya would reveal any information to--["Feast"]--oh yeah, that's right.

Tikki doesn't transform Marinette and says that Marinette shouldn't have trusted Alya with her secret. Enter Chat Blanc, who says that they can be together now without any secrets. Not really sure what this episode is aiming for with the mixed message of "your identity rule sucks" but also "your fault for trusting someone instead of having a mental breakdown," but a’ight. Trixx also gets another dig in on Marinette for giving Alya the fox miraculous.

Marinette wakes up from her nightmare and panics, but Tikki reassures her that Alya is loyal. [”Chameleon”] Mm. Also, that kind of support might've been nice from Tikki literal seasons ago when Marinette could've used a confidant.

Wayzz - I swear, they've had eyelashes more often than not in this season - points out that Trixx is mischievous and Xuppu talks about Trixx being the cause of the Loch Ness monster rumors, which worries Marinette further. Marinette runs out in her pajamas and I can already predict that neither Tom nor Sabine are going to check on her later or care.

Marinette finds the Cesaires looking for something, their words vague enough for Marinette to think that they're talking about Trixx. Alya brushes Marinette off and tells her to help with looking instead of lecturing her.

Marlena makes a comment that reminds Marinette of her nightmare, only increasing Marinette's stress. A tarantula crawls up a ladle and Marinette freaks out when she sees it, which Marlena has a laugh at because Marinette's anxiety, fear, and panic is hilarious, guys!

This is my laughing face. [not a laughing face]

Nino exits, having been too afraid of the spider to leave the room, so Nora compares Marinette to him. Nino tries to play it cool, then changes the subject to point out Marinette's pajamas. Alya wonders aloud why Marinette showed up and Marinette tries to act casual, but Alya sees through it and states that she doesn't usually lose things when someone lends them to her.

I presume the exception is Marinette's trust. OH-HOOOOHHH, we'll get there.

Nora takes a jab at Alya for losing the spider and Marinette drags Alya away to talk. Nino tries to join but Alya states that it's between her and Marinette, which makes Nino sad.

Nino, does the phrase "guys' time" ring a bell by any chance?

Marinette is explaining her nightmare and is simply told to calm down by Alya, though Marinette is briefly startled by a phone ringing. Marinette puts together what she knows that Shadow Moth knows, including that Alya is Rena Rouge, adding on that Shadow Moth could steal the fox necklace if he figured out that Alya has it permanently. Alya reassures her that no one will ever know and Marinette states that this must include Chat Noir. Alya agrees and brings attention to the fanny pack around her waist, which Trixx has been hiding in, and Marinette has Trixx promise not to show up at the dining table like in her nightmare. Tikki tells Marinette that everything will be fine and Marinette admits that it was silly of her to worry, which it was! ...If you ignore all the anxiety, mental scarring, and constant pressure to be perfect or risk Paris lighting itself on fire, much like I presume they accidentally did with their original script for this episode.

Alya tells Marinette to trust her and also herself - I'll be sure to keep that in mind, Alya, thank you - then Alya loses her temper at the phone continuing to ring. She leaves to find an empty living room, then answers the phone only to hear Shadow Moth on the other line. Alya turns upon hearing Marinette scream to see that Marinette has been trapped in a bubble. Cue the reveal/return of the Bubbler, who is definitely Nino akumatized and not--like--a sentimonster, because the episode didn't spoil it at all with the title of Sentibub--

show, this is freaking embarrassing. Why even bother akumatizing someone when you can mold a sentimonster with the exact power you want?

At least they reveal it quickly, though that also means I have to live with the knowledge that Shadow Moth wINKED AT ALYA, NO.

Anyway, Shadow Moth tells Alya that he wants her to betray Ladybug. Marinette, meanwhile, is panicking over being unable to transform while in public, whereas Tikki remains calm and reassures her that Alya will figure something out and it's why Marinette gave Alya the fox miraculous in the first place.

Weird, I thought it was for the show to continuously validate Alya as a worthy choice for a confidant despite repeatedly covering up her sINS and so the show can push for more anxiety on Marinette's part while simultaneously not having to make a new hero model for Alya, which they would have to do if the realistic decision had been made to give Alya a different miraculous due to Shadow Moth knowing her identity as Rena Rouge.

Marinette texts Alya to inform her that the Bubbler is a sentimonster and so Rena can tell Chat not to use Cataclysm on him or the bubbles will burst due to the sentimonster's lack of control.

Hate to burst the show's bubble but Alya could literally see Nino up in the sky and they could see her; the bubbles are in viewing range. Did this even go through a quality check?

Alya goes to look at Marinette's text, but the phone is bubbled away by Sentibubbler. Marinette sees the phone floating by and panics, only to be reassured again to trust Alya and at this point I vaguely wondered if I was watching this episode on repeat. Tikki also adds that Alya has never let her down - [”Ladybug”] MMMM - and Marinette agrees, also certain that Chat Noir will show up soon.

Oh yeah, he exists. Oh no.

Cut to the Agreste mansion where Adrien is watching the news - dude, how is there never anything better on when you need to be told that there's an akuma? here, look, I'll show you [”Silencer” Lukabug clip] there, much better, see? - and it's pointed out that the bubbles are identical to the ones Bubbler had, yet Nino is in one of the bubbles. Adrien readies himself while Plagg is - for once - okay with leaving since his cheese isn't "edible" yet.

I feel like he should be a little more concerned about Marinette being in a bubble.

Meanwhile, Shadow Moth is explaining to Alya that Ladybug will come to give her the fox miraculous due to the bubbled people in the sky - plenty of other choices that aren't within breathing range of the obvious danger zone, but a'ight - and SentiBubbler will catch Ladybug. Alya brings up Chat Noir saving her but Shadow Moth states that she'll create an illusion of Ladybug and Rena to lure Chat Noir, who won't see Sentibubbler coming, at which point Rena will hand Shadow Moth her miraculous. He adds that her loved ones will only be returned once all three miraculouses are in his possession, though if she tries to warn the heroes then Sentibubbler will send the bubbles into space, too far for any hero to save them.

[clip of space power-ups] Hm.

Also, I would've just let her keep the miraculous as an extra bribe since he doesn't need the fox and she wouldn't have time to recharge anyway - at least to his knowledge - but that's just me.

Marinette is relieved that Alya still hasn't been captured--TIKKI, I KNOW, YOU'VE BEEN PARROTING THIS ALL EPISODE, I KNOW--but Marinette changes her tune when she sees Alya blindly calling out for Ladybug's help, unaware that Alya is buying time. Marinette laments the idea of transforming there and having using the rabbit to go back in time to reverse, as that's never a good thing (seconded), but gets the idea for Tikki to take her miraculous to someone else. Tikki rejects the idea, as the earrings won't go through the bubble, and Marinette realizes that Chat Noir is their only hope.

I mean, it was nice knowing them. Sure is interesting how Marinette has only been getting herself into these situations where she requires saving when the show needed to present Alya as a valid choice for a confidant.

Meanwhile, Chat Noir is leaving a message for Ladybug about the bubbles in the sky, saying that he'll wait for her; I already see where this is going and I don't like it.

Alya mutters to Trixx about how they need a plan to release Marinette. Through Alya Vision, we're shown Sentibubbler, a bowl of fruit, and the bathroom door. Alya tells Sentibubbler that she needs to go to the bathroom and - wow, we're really doing this, aren't we? - which Shadow Moth rejects. Shadow Moth is also on top of a building holding a coffee cup which honestly makes about as much sense as the rest of the episode, so whatever. Alya claims that she can't wait and that it'll be awkward for Ladybug to find her like that, which gets Shadow Moth to relent but also remind her of what's at stake if she tries anything. Alya states that she can't do anything without a miraculous anyway, then purposefully falls onto the table, concealing her long enough for her to transform and allowing an illusion of herself to go to the bathroom while she escapes. She detransforms in the twins' room and feeds Trixx with some grapes that she'd picked up.

Alya explains her plan to trick Shadow Moth and Sentibubbler since they don't know that she has a miraculous, though she also has to make sure that Chat won't ruin things. Rena then proceeds to call Chat Noir and claim that Ladybug wanted her to call him with her plan, but adds that it's a two-person plan and Chat himself isn't needed, so he needs to wait for further instructions. Chat demands that Ladybug call him to tell him herself, but Rena insists that she can't, as Ladybug is very busy. She warns him not to use Cataclysm if he sees the Bubbler, as he's a sentimonster, then promises to talk to him later before hanging up.

She uses Mirage again, making the Alya illusion reappear as well as creating a Ladybug. Chat Noir, infuriated at being left out, destroys part of a building with his baton. He then dismisses the action because Miraculous Ladybug will fix it.

Spoiler alert, it will, which is a very fascinating detail! I mean, I can't imagine another situation where a hero did something while there was an akuma going around and Miraculous Ladybug decided to help 'em out, but it just goes to show what happens when you're the writers' pet. Just look a little pitiful and they'll give you all the sympathy in the world.

By the way, didn't expect them to actually confirm my theory that Chat Noir does Chat Noir things because he knows that Miraculous Ladybug will fix it anyway, essentially allowing him to earn brownie points from Ladybug via sacrificing himself regardless of how it affects her mentally, yet here we are and I don't know whether to be sad, angry, disappointed, or a mixture of all three.

Chat Noir sees the Ladybug illusion jumping off and gives chase, refuses to stay where he is. Marinette, seeing that Rena Rouge's illusions are active, panics at the sight of Chat Noir, as the illusion will vanish if Chat touches it.

I like to imagine the immediate concern is the idea that Chat Noir will try to take Ladybug's hand while trying to flirt.

Anyway, Marinette flails inside the bubble in an attempt to reach Chat Noir, while illusion Alya and SentiBubbler get into position. Chat Noir watches what he perceives as Ladybug heading into the Cesaire house with Alya, but Marinette gets to him in order to tell him not to go anywhere. Chat complains about everyone telling him to stay put, but Marinette explains Rena's plan to him. Chat is skeptical of how she knows that, to which Marinette insists that she saw it from where she was. Chat Noir relents with a sigh and stays where he is.

SentiBubbler watches as the illusion of Alya and Ladybug talk to each other, Rena making it look like Ladybug is piecing together what happened and refusing to give Alya a miraculous ever again due to Shadow Moth knowing her identity. She claims that she'll find another holder and give them an even more powerful miraculous, which interests Shadow Moth and gets him to follow after the Ladybug illusion. Once Sentibubbler leaves as well, Chat sees this as his chance to stop the sentimonster, as the Ladybug illusion will vanish if it's touched. Marinette strokes his ego for the token love square moment of the episode, and Chat Noir fights SentiBubbler while Shadow Moth goes after the Ladybug illusion.

I'm noticing a real lack of tension in this episode. Once Alya has her plan, it's kind of a clean sweep from start to finish with no interference or unexpected roadblocks in the way. Even Shadow Moth following the Ladybug illusion goes fine, with Shadow Moth even punching a building thinking that Ladybug actually got away from him.

Dude, it's fine, Miraculous Ladybug will fix it, just put on your best sad face. Maybe Chat Noir gets it from you actually, is treatment from the writers a hereditary thing?

Sentibubbler and Chat Noir are still fighting. Shadow Moth shows up and Marinette tries to warn Chat, but Chat gets caught in a bubble and Marinette apologizes; she doesn't have anything to apologize for but after "Reflekdoll" I--wait I already did this.

Chat Noir uses Cataclysm to escape, only to get caught in another bubble. I'd just like to throw out there that this guy's a hero three seasons going and the love interest for the main character, yet his role in the episode has amounted to complaining about the authority of a hero Ladybug chose, throwing a property-destroying tantrum over being excluded, and wasting his power without a single thought which just got him captured again.

Chat, does the name "Syren" ring any bells by any chance? I'm just sayin', you could always quit. In fact, wasn't it you literally one episode ago saying that you understood if Ladybug couldn't always come get you? Then, after seeing the jump from "Glaciator" to "Frozer," I'm about as shocked as rubber.

Back with the competent one, Alya notes to Trixx that Rena Rouge can no longer be seen by Shadow Moth or else the jig is up. She transforms and texts Marinette to be ready, creating an illusion of Marinette that simultaneously hides the real version, allowing her to transform into Ladybug.

Chat Noir's bubble gets dragged down and Shadow Moth gets SentiBubbler to mute Chat Noir's bubble.

[clip from “Silencer” where Ladybug takes amusement in Chat being muted]

Ladybug uses Lucky Charm and receives a pot, her Lucky Vision spotting Shadow Moth's coffee cup, then SentiBubbler, then the tarantula trapped in a bubble. Ladybug deduces that the cup is the sentimonster's object, then pulls the horse miraculous out of her yoyo and unifies it with the ladybug--oh.

Oh my.

You know, it's times like this where I'm reminded that the show knows nothing about fashion... or girls... or good writing actually--there's just a lot of stuff they don't know.

Sentibubbler does a countdown, then starts sending the civilian bubbles up into the sky. Chat Noir is about to de-transform while PegaBug notices of Shadow Moth's two miraculous, up for grabbin'. She notes that she won't be able to catch everyone, so she forms a portal behind Shadow Moth and goes for the coffee cup first, thus putting her in control of SentiBubbler, who happily brings the bubbles back down at her command.

Shadow Moth erases SentiBubbler from existence though, causing everyone to fall, but Chat and PegaBug manage to catch them. PegaBug de-transforms and presents the Cesaires with the tarantula, which had been trapped inside the lucky charm. Ladybug and Chat Noir watch Shadow Moth escape and Ladybug laments that it could've been the end of Shadow Moth once and for all because it's not a Miraculous episode without Marinette being at fault or feeling guilty in some way! Chat Noir reassures her [*by “reassure,” I mean he might as well have said, “Well, you saved ME, so you did great!”] - wow, that's two token love square moments for the price of one episode, don't I feel spoiled - and Ladybug leaves to retrieve the tarantula's tank.

Rena Rouge is waiting for her and they hug, with Rena repeating that she doesn't lose something that someone gives her. Ladybug states that she never should've doubted the idea of giving Alya a miraculous and Imma just give you guys a counter real quick. [counter that shows that Tikki has complimented Alya four times, Alya has complimented herself/told Marinette to trust her thrice, and Marinette has said that she was wrong thrice]. Miraculous Ladybug is cast and everything returns to normal, with Alya explaining what she did and Marinette being relieved that Shadow Moth won't be going after her anymore. Alya confidently asks if she was smart and Marinette is happy to praise her, confirming it and stating that Alya is a real superhero and honestly? If the narrative wanted to marry Alya this badly, they should've just used some of the budget to buy a ring instead of projecting onto the other characters.

Then again, the apparent budget can't even afford a new hero model nor new akuma to a very noticeable degree, so I guess they're taking what they can get.

Alya praises Marinette as well for her work as PegaBug and they do a fistbump, thus ending the episode. There's also this ever-so-lovely post-episode scene with Gabriel and Nathalie where Gabriel laments the fact that Ladybug never makes mistakes which--I... has he even watched the series at all? Gabe, babe, Babriel Agreste, it's literally part of the show's formula that Marinette makes a mistake in every episode and she felt guilty like a minute ago over not yoinking your miraculouses when she had the chance, where have you been?

But, yeah, anyway, the episode.

Needless to say, not a fan. Like I said, the show seems so intent on immediately validating the choices they make with Alya in order to make her look like a better character. "Gang of Secrets" basically replaced her with someone different at the end of the episode, and the episode immediately afterwards in chronological order, "Mr. Pigeon 72," did everything it could to push Marinette out of her guardian position long enough for Alya to figure out the grimoire despite having zero onscreen experience with it, the episode even trapping Ladybug in a situation that forced Rena Rouge to come into play to validate that decision as well.

And now we have "SentiBubbler" here following immediately after "Optigami," desperate to reassure its audience that Alya is cool, smart, truthworthy, and that not needing to make a new model--sorry, I mean Alya continuing to have the fox--was a good decision. All the while, they continue pushing Alya's flaws under the rug [Note that it’s not even considered that Alya is even remotely at fault for Shadow Moth going after her specifically after her stunt in “Optigami” when no one else but Ladybug and Chat have ever given out a miraculous], hiding them instead of Alya actually acknowledging them, the only reason she did so in "Optigami" being the same as in "Gang of Secrets"; to make her look good while Marinette makes a big decision in their relationship.

The episode tries so hard to drill in this idea that Alya is a good friend who can be trusted, and I'm just not here for how much they try to hammer it in. Marinette's very real anxiety over Shadow Moth's power and ability to plan things is played off as her being silly instead of something to be concerned about, and instead of giving her a hug and trying to help her calm down - [clip from “Heart Hunter” of Luka hugging Marinette] I miss Luka - she's just told to trust and believe and hAVE fAiTh in Alya.

Shadow Moth is an adult; he has abilities that the teenage heroes don't. I'm not even saying that Marinette isn't overreacting [Basically, her concern about Shadow Moth is valid, especially after “Optigami” where her identity was almost found out], but she has anxiety and some obvious trauma over "Chat Blanc." I was already upset that Alya got a free pass to Marinette's identity, but the constant stressing over how much Marinette should trust her just doesn't affect me when I know Alya and I know the kind of stuff she's done that the show blatantly ignored in favor of pushing for her.

But okay, show, I'll give Alya the benefit of the doubt that she doesn't deserve. Let's say that she's turned a new leaf, and has become the reliable, trustworthy, and loyal partner that Marinette deserves. I'm sure that Alya has Marinette's back, and will never go behind said back in order to do something completely unsurprising and wholly indicative of the character I actually know her to be.

Especially not a mere three episodes later...

[bonsai62]

I just realized something... I was talking to this person one time on a post before and as I was typing that’s when i realized something:

This is for my fellow Nobamaki & Itafushi shippers! If you guys don’t ship it then it’s okay! This is just like a small analysis in my eyes and the way I read things! I can be wrong or just love reaching on a shit ton of things but this is all for fun and I love sharing with you guys!

Let’s get started! Also, this contains spoilers!

Do you guys realize that Nobamaki/Itafushi actually parallel to each other? Let me explain in shitty English and basic grammar and vocabulary lol:

As I watch and read Jujutsu Kaisen I see a lot of parallels between characters; Gojo with Megumi or Yuji, Getou with Megumi and Yuji or Nobara and Maki... but what I want to parallel between characters is:

Yuji & Maki

1. Raw strength:

Both are hella fucking strong and for people who don’t have cursed techniques, they know how to kick fucking ass. What made me realize that both of them are the same is honestly during the baseball game. I like how we were able to see Maki and Yuji making a home run... okay well Momo fucked up Maki’s groove! Haha! But during the Tokyo vs Kyoto event, Maki and Yuji go ham on their enemy.

Yes, Maki used weapons but still, we can’t deny she got good speed and strength that is similar to Yuji’s. That’s why I wish I can see them both doing a bad ass duo fight together.

I have a small headcanon that Yuji actually enjoys training with Maki the most because I feel like he can understand someone who shares similarity in natural raw strength and speed. And Maki feels the same way and it’s a good excuse to bully Yuji as a joke. I would honestly love to see that! Lol!

2. Their story:

Yuji and Maki honestly have it bad. Yuji loosing his only family member (his abuelo) and becoming Sukuna’s vessel which leads him to a future execution. For Maki is the fact that her family treated her like garbage and having to leave her sister behind and eventually her sister dying.

Both Maki and Yuji share that same pain when it comes to loosing someone. We saw Yuji with Junpei and in the Shibuya Arc with Nanamin and Noabra. Again, Maki the same with Mai.

I think what made me even realize it MORE on how alike and how they parallel with each other are these images right here and how they worded their final saying:

In the Shibuya Arc, Yuji lost it. He lost it with Nanamin and Nobara (but luckily for Todo, he was able to pick his feet back up).

If I was Yuji, I would’ve reacted the same way because imagine having the idea you want to save people no matter what but people keeps dying around you or by you? It’s tiring and I would’ve had a mental breakdown too.

After kicking Mahito’s ass, Yuji says there is no reason anymore. For me, when Maki’s arc came it really reminded me of this:

When Mai died and was killed by her own dad. Her dad took away someone who was precious to Maki no matter how much they didn’t get along. Maki really wanted to create the Zenin clan just for Mai to be safe and free.

Again, same with Maki, I would’ve killed the whole clan too because of how in general the Zenin clan is and how they treat people.

3. Having a “curse”:

Nanamin to Yuji: “You’ve got it from here”

Mai to Maki: “destroy everything”

I don’t necessarily mean a curse curse but it’s more like final words that someone important to them said before dying.

For Yuji, he won’t die because Nanamin believes that Yuji can move forward and save the world.

As for Maki, Mai tells her to destroy everything in order for things to change (I might be wrong). It’s for the Zenin clan to start fresh. That is another way I kinda Interpreted (again, I can be wrong). Maki still isn’t done with destroying things plus she is going to move forward just like Yuji. 

I have a thing that if the higher ups find out about Maki, she would be on the verge of being executed as well. So imagine both Maki and Yuji together being executed.

Now on to the next pair!

Megumi & Nobara

Again, this is just me analyzing. But if you ship Itafushi and Nobamaki, you can actually see another pair that parallels to each other but so far I haven’t seen anyone compare them yet, or it’s just me lol!

1. No rivalries:

I think what I love about these ships so damn much is that there is NO RIVALRIES. Even if you don’t ship them you have to admit it is amazing seeing a m/m or f/f getting along without being damn rivals. I’m glad Gege decided not to do that especially towards the women because it does get so tiring that two women don’t like each other for no damn reason or fighting over the main guy or other main guy. At least when Nobara didn’t like Mai or Momo, she had a reason for not liking them.

And don’t get me started with Megumi and Yuji. I was so happy to finally see two boys be friends instead of the usual, boring rivalries. I’m a be honest with you, I was pretty shocked that Gege was able to make Megumi and Yuji be so close and trust each other as friends. It’s a breath of fresh air for the two ships like omg I was happy not seeing the basic shonen bullshit with the f/f and m/m relationship.

2. Hyping up their pairs:

What I mean by hyping them up, I’m talking about the potential that Maki and Yuji has that Nobara and Megumi sees from them. Nobara since the start acknowledge that Maki is strong and vice versa with Megumi with Yuji. What made me see that Nobara knows that Maki is just amazing and strong was during the baseball when Maki was able to hit almost a home run. Nobara just knew that Maki would be able to make that home run but again Momo ruined her moment! Lol!

As for Megumi, we see while the Tokyo students came up with a strategy to win against the Kyoto students, we see him saying that Yuji can actually beat all their asses without curse energy or energy(one of those). Megumi reassures to people that Yuji can take care of himself and is very useful. Another time Megumi reassured that Yuji is strong is when he was in his bed healing from Hanami’s attacks and when they fought tiger against that one dude (forgot his name)

3. Thinking about them/defending them:

Now… this is really what made me think why Nobara and Megumi parallel with each other

It’s becasue I feel like they’re the ones who are more attached and over protective with Yuji and Maki than how Maki and Yuji are with them.

Now, I’m not saying it’s vice verse with Maki and Yuji. But I’m talking about how Nobara and Megumi expresses it. Let me explain:

While reading and watching JJK, we see how Nobara is with Maki compared to anyone else. And no, I’m not saying that Nobara isn’t overprotective with Megumi or Yuji but just the way she is towards Maki. I would honest love to see how these girls got along and how they became close!

Ever since Maki and Nobara had that deep conversation about why Maki choose to be a sorcerer, that is when I actually started shipping them because of how much respect Nobara has towards Maki and it continues to develop more and more with the two of them. We saw how Nobara got super defensive when she fought against Mai (First time) and started dissing Mai. The second time was with Momo, when she was straight up talking shit about Maki.

I love how when Nobara was talking about Maki and Yuji when fighting against Momo. However, I felt a different vibe towards it as well. What I mean by that is that I got more of a “big sister vibe” toward Yuji and a “I love and respect Maki”

But again, I feel like Nobara had some sort of feeling and attachment toward Maki ever since that fight with Momo and more than anyone else too. However, that is just me though! You do t have to agree with my reaching!

For Megumi and Yuji… First of all… Megumi would not hesitate to pull a trigger if anyone is trying to harm Yuji. What made me see that was against Kamo and the Kyoto students. I swear that day Megumi was literally about to commit murder.

Yeah, Nobara got pissed but she went easy on them, but Megumi didn’t. Oh no, he was about to commit a felony. He wanted all the smoke. He wanted that curse. I swear I even felt how pissed he was. I just feel like every time and separates, shit goes down the wrong way and everything goes wrong.

For me, shipping Megumi and Yuji is a whole ass different post but I won’t do that lmao same with Nobamaki because I can write a whole ass essay why I love how compatibly/perfect for each other lol

Bonus:

But guess what… during the Kyoto and Tokyo event, same shit happened with Megumi like Nobara: Megumi was thinking of Tsumiki and Yuji. And again, I felt like it was still different when Megumi was thinking of Tsumiki and Yuji. I find it crazy how Nobara and Megumi were thinking about two people during that event:

Nobara: Maki & Yuji Megumi: Yuji & Tsumiki

This is my personal favorite image of Nobara and Megumi. *wink wink* it’s basically the same image on who is important to to them.

Again, for Nobara and Yuji’s relationship, I just love the way it is. She gives me “big sister” energy towards Yuji and vice verse. Yuji and Nobara are those chaotic siblings that are the hyper ones while Megumi and Maki are the chill ones that can actually keep them down. There has been one occasion where both Megumi and Maki calms Yuji and Nobara down because of how they were acting and I’m not gonna lie it’s kinda cute lmao:

4. Not leaving them:

During the Shibuya Arc, Maki and Nobara separates but at one panel, Nanamin was telling Nobara and Nitta that he was going to join the Zenins. Nobara quickly picked her head up and suggested that she wanted to join him in order for her to be with Maki (this is a stretch but hey Iike being dramatic) however, Nanamin quickly declines her and tells her that it’s too dangerous. I think she was disappointed that she couldn’t go, but hey, Nanamin is a gentleman and he knows when a child is gonna end up getting hurt. I thought it was cute that she was super worried about Maki and just doesn’t care and wanting to join her.

Now, up the recent chapters, Megumi really shows us that he doesn’t want Yuji leaving him or he wants to stay by his side. Those few chapters really made my heart feel some type of way because it just the way Megumi is for Yuji and I can honestly feel how much he cares for him. As I mentioned above, I feel like everything goes to shit when those two aren’t together and I hope that they develop more and more. There has been two more occasions where Fushi doesn’t want Yuji to be left behind; one during when they were in prison and the second during the fight against Hanamin. The eyes that Fushiguro gives Yuji is full of trauma and careness.

In conclusion, I can’t wait for Nobamaki and Itafushi to develop more and more in future chapters. Again, you guys don’t have to agree with me on this. This is just for fun and sharing is fun too! If I’m overreaching then I’m sorry I just can’t help it :(!!

I hope you guys enjoyed my lil analysis! I’m sorry for the bad writing, I’m not very good at translating my feelings as I’m typing because my brain goes all over the place lol! But please, feel free to comment or give me an ask! I’ll be happy to elaborate more for you guys!

Stay safe y’all! And good night or morning!

[immaturityofthomasastruc]

IOTA Reviews: Rocketear

The Rocketeer is a 1991 Disney movie set in 1930's America where a test pilot gets a jetpack and uses it to fight Nazis and— Wait, what? “Rocketear”? Oh, damn it!

Let's get into the eleventh (chronologically the seventeenth) episode of Miraculous Ladybug's fourth season: Rocketear.

We start off with Carapace and Cat Noir struggling to hold back some T-Rexes brought back to life by a scientist Jurassic Park style. Seriously, they reference the movie in the same scene.

Why wasn't this the plot of the episode again?

After managing to tame the dinosaurs with a whistle of all things, Ladybug notices something's wrong with Nino after he gives the Turtle Miraculous back to her. Apparently, he's wondering why Rena Rouge (who he knows is Alya) wasn't recruited with him today. Ladybug tells him that he was the only help she needed today. In reality, it's because Alya has adjusted to her new role of supporting Ladybug behind the scenes in her new form, Rena Furtive.

And I'm not a fan of the new form. I get the camo, but it doesn't really help her blend in when her suit is bright blue. I think it's based off the arctic fox, but that animal is able to camouflage itself because it's fur matches the snowy environment. I'm sure a bright blue jumpsuit won't stand out when she tries to blend in at all. Also, the fact that Alya can just change her hero form gives even less excuses as to why Ladybug's new form is only when she uses her Lucky Charm.

Alya is struggling to keep this a secret from Nino because they don't have a lot of secrets in their relationship. Marinette says she can kind of get it because she had to keep her identity a secret from her friend and has to keep keeping her identity a secret from everyone else. Basically, she's telling Alya to suck it up because this is what being a superhero is.

So the next time she sees Nino, Alya tells him she's no longer Rena Rouge, but not about Rena Furtive, which troubles her. The very next scene shows Alya showing Marinette pictures she took of her new costume and asking her which version looks better.

You could always try reviewing Akuma fights. I heard there's one blog that does it when they're not criticizing the famous director Thomas Astruc on social media.

Yeah, in case you can't tell, Alya was only able to rent her brain for a few episodes because she really doesn't seem as understanding about being a superhero as she was in earlier episodes. In episodes like “Optigami” and “Sentibubbler”, we saw Alya use more strategy and show discretion as Rena Rouge, seemingly taking her job more seriously, but then this episode just had to go and piss it all away. I also love how the first time the animators made Alya's skin the same when she's transformed is in a single frame for a joke.

Alya thankfully deletes the picture, but Nino overhears her talking about struggling to find more content for the Ladyblog, and decides to go to the movies with her to help take her mind off things. Nino, in turn, proceeds to give the same reaction to the in-universe Ladybug movie that Astruc gives to the PV.

Apparently, that movie's already getting a sequel and it has a teaser. So was the sequel animated at the same time as the original like Back to the Future Part II and Back to the Future Part III?

Nino gets pissed the next movie in the Ladybug Cinematic Universe will feature Rena Rouge and not Carapace... even though Rena Rouge debuted first. The teaser then shows Rena Rouge falling for Cat Noir (yet another creative liberty taken by the writers or something Astruc's self-insert threw in himself), and takes it like it's the real thing. Dude, the first movie said Ladybug was afraid of cats, and the director yelled at the person it was based on for judging it. He clearly has a hard time distinguishing fiction from reality.

Alya leaves Nino early so she can go on patrol, but Nino sees Cat Noir heading out as well. He then watches a video on the Ladyblog where Alya praises Cat Noir which is totally not Astruc projecting or anything.

I don't know what your definition of a prince is, Alya, and I honestly don't want to know.

So Nino takes this as evidence that Alya is in love with Cat Noir and decides to tell Adrien, who naturally laughs him off. And just before you think we have an episode where Adrien plays the straight man, Adrien decides to visit Alya because he's afraid he accidentally charmed Alya.

Yes, because Cat Noir is so charming, girls are just fighting over him, aren't they?

We then cut to a black and white film noir monologue by Nino (dressed like a detective with a fake mustache), who decides to spy on Alya. When Cat Noir asks Alya if she is attracted to him, she naturally laughs him off, though Cat Noir is thankfully a good sport about it, even giving her a hug to apologize. Unfortunately, Nino took this the wrong way.

The next day at school, Nino takes Adrien into his “office” (it's really an excuse to reuse the boiler room setpiece), and shows him the picture of the hug. Adrien says that Alya would never fall for Cat Noir because she's always dedicated to finding out the truth and telling her boyfriend everything. What's Nino's retort?

Okay, several problems with this bit. First of all, why would Nino even tell Adrien any of this? What would it accomplish? Why not say all this to Alya while confronting her about her alleged unfaithfulness? Second, Ladybug didn't give Nino and Alya their Miraculous at the same time until it was an absolute emergency. She outright said in “Hero's Day” that she didn't have time to recruit Nino and Alya separately.

Ladybug: I'm sorry for what I'm about to do. I know I'm revealing your secret identities but I don't have time to find a good excuse to give them to you separately. Rena Rouge and Carapace, I need you both!

Nino and Alya kept their identities secret from each other until then, with Alya even keeping the fact she knew who Carapace was a secret as well. Nino didn't find out because “they don't hide anything from each other” (which I plan to talk about later).

Other than that, I actually liked Adrien in this scene. It was really investing to see him try to justify the whole secret identities rule while Nino blatantly said there was an exception. This is the kind of stuff I wanted to see when it came to Adrien doubting Ladybug, not him destroying things in his anger.

While Nino rants about how Cat Noir “stole” Alya from him, Shadowmoth sends an Akuma his way, turning him into Rocketear.

And the design he has is just boring. It's just a blue jumpsuit with some black spots that look like teardrops, a teardrop-shaped head and a visor. I think the reason this season's been relying more on past Akumas and using more Sentimonsters is because DQ is terrible at character designs. I mean, compare this suit with Aigraon from Zyuden Sentai Kyoryuger (his Power Rangers counterpart is Wrench from Dino Charge).

The design does so much more with the teardrop motif, giving him a perpetually miserable face with tear lines going all over his body. Add that to a more diverse color scheme, and you have a much more visually stunning design. And this was created in real life, not rendered on a computer. I'm not sure if this is a budget thing or a laziness thing, but if it's the former, you really need to do better, animators.

The powers are meh, giving Nino the ability to fling explosive tears at enemies. It's a clever idea, and it makes sense he gets a power that parallels Cat Noir's, but I think maybe it would have been more interesting if he couldn't control the tears at all. Like, imagine if he was constantly crying like Blue Diamond, and with every tear he shed, Rocketeer could send it at whoever he felt was causing him misery, mainly Cat Noir, all while serving as a metaphor for people who blame others for their own personal issues. Better yet, make him look like the detective outfit Nino wore for the second act. It would have made him more unpredictable instead of making his tears generic projectile weapons.

Marinette and Alya see the fight and transform into Ladybug and Rena Furtive respectively, the former summoning her Lucky Charm, a projector. Is it just me, or has this been happening with Ladybug a lot recently?

Back to Rocketear, we get a good moment where Cat Noir intentionally lets the Akuma hit him so he can get a chance to resolve things diplomatically. See, this is a moment where Cat Noir's self-sacrificing nature feels heroic and not selfish like when he does it without Ladybug's permission to spite her. Unfortunately, it doesn't really go anywhere as Ladybug shows up and plays the recording Nino took (Alya found his phone earlier), while Rena Furtive uses her Mirage to give the audio to what actually happened that night.

Rena transforms back into Alya and embraces Rocketear, who apologizes to her for his behavior. And then he just... rejects Shadowmoth's power while looking like it wasn't that much effort.

At least when Chloe and Alya did it, we saw them struggling for a little longer. I guess maybe it's because Nino is motivated by his love for Alya, but I think it should have been fleshed out more. So Ladybug purifies the Akuma, gives Nino a Magical Charm, and Cat Noir is still unsure about his feelings for Ladybug at the moment, though they still pound it.

Back in his room, Adrien ponders why Alya and Nino get to know their identities while he and Ladybug can't, but Plagg points out it's because she's the Guardian. It's brief, but I do like seeing Adrien start to doubt Ladybug's judgment, and it looks like it'll foreshadow future episodes. This is a problem I've had since “Hero's Day”, and I'm glad the writers are finally acknowledging this double standard. I just hope they don't end up blaming Marinette for whatever happens later on.

Marinette, of course, apologizes for what happened between Alya and Nino, and I have to say... yeah, no. It's obviously Nino's fault here.

Nino really pushed personal boundaries in this episode, much like Marinette's friends in “Gang of Secrets”. Yes, honesty is a valuable trait, but sometimes, people have secrets they want to keep to themselves. Nino's idea of “not hiding anything from each other” is somewhat controlling, like he's demanding Alya tell him everything whether she wants to or not. The fact that he immediately assumed Alya was cheating on him without giving her freedom to make her own choices doesn't make him look good. Let's be honest, a more realistic outcome would be Alya choosing to break things off with Nino or at least lecture him about how she can do what she wants and keep the secrets she wants. But instead...

And that's how the episode ends.

Okay, Marinette just said she trusted Alya to make the right decision, but I highly doubt she meant this. Marinette strictly said Alya had to keep Rena Furtive a secret, and now she's telling Nino this despite the risk? The whole reason Marinette and Luka broke up was because Marinette had to keep her secrets from Luka, but now it's okay for Alya to be completely honest? How is this not a double standard?

This episode was just dull, and there’s not even much I can really say about it.. There were a handful of standout moments, and the stuff with Adrien was somewhat compelling, but Nino's behavior was just insufferable and dragged the episode down. The Akuma fight was weak, only lasting about four minutes at most, and while the Lucky Charm was more creative this time, the plot was just frustrating. It's really one of the weaker episodes this season.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to watch the better Rocketeer.

[bibiana112]

If u want someone to ask about zero escape….what are you thoughts on Akane and Junpei in ztd compared to 999? Like which characterizations are better to you, and what could the other have done better?

Thank u for taking that tidbit on my description and running with it Thank u Thank u

Okay so you see, this is kind of tricky because while I do have Big criticisms of it as I do almost every aspect of ztd, their characterization is also something I literally described to my friend as pretty much the only worthwhile development in the whole thing? Like I don't think they drop the ball on the two of them or, okay, well at least not that hard, not to the degree that many other threads are dropped or to a degree where it bothers me necessarily

So uuh, yeah! It's complicated! And it's going under a read more because it's a lot apparently! Hi btw if you're new here I'm a Pretty wordy person lol

• Okay so first, Junpei thoughts, finally I have some Junpei thoughts to let loose

One of the big things that stood out to me about Junpei in particular while replaying 999, and well with my friend's perspective on him as well, is that he isn't really allowed to be as dynamic of a character in ztd as he used to be, like I legit forgot why I liked him so much until I revisited 999. He's so jaded during the whole entirety of it that the little bits where he does let anything other than edge shine through is when you're reminded oh yeah that's the same dork, other than that he's pretty one note as either the asshole of c-team or dead. Oh and in love with Akane, did you know he's in love with Akane? I think we should tell the audience again, they didn't hear it the first 90 times including the other games. SORRY I Do like them but it's kind of a peculiar situation how he seems to fall on a bunch of love interest pitfalls usually reserved for female characters, basically every single action and narrative development of his is primarily defined by his relationship with Akane which like I get it but this game is Also trying to pretend she isn't the protagonist at the same time and it just feels off because I would like to think him and at least the Fields would remain in contact after 999 and it's nice that he kind of works with Seven sometimes but it's an especially weird direction as follow up on the set up from vlr since it allowed him to have another person dear to him, which you know Quark is just an X-Pass now since he hasn't adopted him yet if at all and he truly Only cares about Akane and quite literally nothing else not even himself and okay fine go off I don't like that very much if he's supposed to be very average how am I not supposed to wonder about what kind of life he had before the nonary game if he drops everything in it to go after the childhood friend he hardly knew anymore/woman that literally kidnapped him? I can see why that'd be a kind of sort of natural progression for him character wise, I can see the sheer impact of the experience leading him to desperately want closure sure, can also see him starting off less like that but then the line of work takes a toll on his mental health, sure, but I still... don't... vibe. Maybe it's just me not enjoying romance more than half the time but yeah I just don't think it's that great of a direction, I think it doesn't completely not work and i Do like how they still don't entirely get along despite all that, I'll get into that more a bit later I think but still on the subject of only Junpei

In 999 he is great he subverts what you'd expect of a protagonist by starting out with the exact vibes you'd expect from a generic one, again he is a dork, but he is also just a dude super confused and not even necessarily trying to get along with everyone, he just wants out and since he knows June he wants to get her out as well, he even has a pretty unapologetic cold streak on like Door 3 being the most egregious example but even smaller things like cheating on the draw or just the way he conducts himself when pulling off his whole gambit on exposing Ace. And still despite all that his heart's in the right place and he does connect with the people he's stuck with, especially Clover y'know, and he saves a little girl not even only because it's his friend but because it's someone that needed his help and he couldn't just ignore that. Like, I truly think that one of the neat things about their relationship in 999 is that it Is still on pretty equal standing in regards to the narrative, since well it was designed to be as part of the premise, he is getting the puzzle solutions from her sure but mini-Akane only got to witness a bunch of important stuff because Junpei was capable enough to figure those out himself in the present as well. I miss those moments of him figuring shit out and being allowed to be a smooth smartass about it for two seconds and then it goes on cooldown and he's back to dumbass bi disaster hours cracking puns and getting attached to the silliest things to cope with the stress of the situation and no impulse control

Can I talk about how I don't like that one fragment from ztd? Suspicion? That one where he's dead. It is a joke lmao, it's probably just the melodramatic tone moreso than characters actually getting dumber but everyone I've watched get to that part went wow Junpei died and Akane immediately lost braincells okay, like, it would make sense for her to flip her shit! But something about the framing was... Not selling it. It also made me seriously consider wether or not Junpei was, kind of, sort of fridged? Obviously because uh that's just what the imagery evoked but setting aside the gender stuff about this trope for a bit can we acknowledge that like, Akane gets impactful moments relating to vlr stuff while all he gets is to be collateral of those moments? He really doesn't do much of his own accord. I also will much more fiercely defend that Phi was definitely fridged but that's not who we're talking about now kajsks

• Here I go talking shit about how their relationship is handled in ztd despite enjoying it in theory

Okay remember when I mentioned I enjoy how they aren't entirely getting along? Well yeah! I think it's pretty great that we get to see how the trauma is still there and how junpei doesn't entirely know what to think of the whole thing after finding her again and immediately being given the cold shoulder and how he wants it to be acknowledged while Akane wants to keep pretending she's someone else so she can do what she was there to do and then leave and not be reminded of all the feelings she indeed has under all her calmness, because, for once, she didn't plan for him to be there at all. But that's almost just the premise and the little bits we get from D-com before it went to shit, during the actual game I think it could've developed the idea that That's where their relationship is at much much better. Instead of, like, not only immediately jumping to getting engaged but getting engaged at the fucking death game too. Like if there was at least any room to breathe before he actually gets to propose y'know? Gets kind of old dying on different fragments over and over and only gathering that the weird thing he's holding is a ring because it rolls off one of the times and have the immediate reaction be wait seriously? Aw ok. I think if he wasn't obsessed about it and just idk found it in the common area and did the proposing as a spur of the moment thing after they've already done some shifting bullshit it'd be much better, he's impulsive like that and I think it'd make it feel like there was actual progression from where their relationship started out y'know?

• Akane is the writer's favorite character and it shows (honorific)

The thing with Akane on the other hand is that, well, I most definitely don't prefer her in ztd, but I almost feel like it would be incomplete to look at her character in the other games without the context we get here? I just wish it was I dunno on a fucking leaflet instead of part of this game lol I feel like ztd is the time where they Best convey the idea they had of her as the ''World's Worst Heroine'' and everything, I feel like in the other games she is too... defendable? For that title? Is that the word I'm looking for here? You could look at her in 999 and completely justify her actions or even just comprehend them, you don't really have too much context from her perspective in VLR but it's easy to do the same depending on who you are, easier even. In ztd, however, we actually get to see first-hand the messed up things she's capable of including her mindset going into preparing the AB game. Not that we couldn't surmise it from context and actually playing through it, but watching her actually say the ends justify the means as she drugs junpei into passing out again while still being able to see how it just pains her to with the callback to when they were kids is pretty much a buckwild fucking wow moment for me still, and I think her being aggressively theistic up to that point is also good spice as I've once discussed already.

And the thing is? I don't think 999 could have showed us that side of her at all, I can imagine that side to her being there as zero while in the planning stage, or while Junpei is away from her in the game, all I want but that could never be in the game proper aside from the implications it already has. It couldn't fit, if she ever slipped in her charade in a way that clues the audience in more than we already are then it circles back into undermining the very point that she is scary good at this, mini-Akane still hasn't fostered so many of those traits for us to know from her either, all of that. I like to pretend only 999 happens a lot but even then I wonder what if it actually was the only game in the franchise how much my perception of her character would be different then, y'know?

That being said, while I think ztd ties a bunch of things together in respect that we finally get to see her without putting on a big farce, I also think it had a bunch of missed opportunities? But that I'd say is derived mostly from how the game itself is paced and structured, all that jazz and, look, I love shifting junkie himbo Carlos, enjoy c-team ot3 as much as the next guy but he is. Just. A Guy. And their interactions having to go through such a vanilla ass character's thick skull most of the time almost annoys me? I think what annoys me is that he's so out of the loop while both the characters around him And the audience are begging to know about what's happened since 999. Like on a basic dialogue level he just doesn't bring much to the table despite having a background that would make you think he would. It is staggering how much of a creep they make him come across as just for gross anime little sister jokes and despite enjoying what they did for Akane's general sense of dark freaking humor, it drives me absolutely insane how Akane seems like she forgot she isn't an only child to enable those particular jokes, or how she has literally no aversion to fucking Fire, and this one's probably a me thing tbh but there's a minor interaction from an item where she was the one positively thinking back on how nice nurses were like girl how do you let yourself have a single good memory related to hospitals after everything. Whatever Carlos has going on with Junpei is okay though, I like how jaded ass junpei rags on him being so selfless every chance he gets, don't love it but it's okay

• Okay there's a tldr about Junpei and Akane, aka what you actually asked about, after this next paragraph because I needed to rag on this particular aspect of ztd a bit, you know for my sanity, cause sure I had fun with the shifting segment but it's pretty fucked

OH MAN I have to get this out of my chest Know the Whole thing with the aliens?? It drives me insane how the only reason it's there probably it's that they had both vlr to follow up on and the Stupid premise of the decision game, at some point they realized oops if only three people can survive the game but five of these people need to make it through the fucking apocalypse what do?? And they went with just copy paste two of them from another timeline like. what. It's a poor premise for a death game in this universe to begin with, it's very saw-ish and while you can justify it as a character thing it's still just. Not an environment that is as thought provoking or as good for enabling character stuff as the ones that came before, the whole narrative isn't. I say the time travel becomes the main character after 999 and I stand by that, the gimmick that they choose to flesh out isn't very well conducive to actual character studies, so as the series goes on the form and the time travel and mechanics related to that become way more interesting by design to pick apart than most of the new cast. Unfortunately even the old cast suffers from that being the case, fucking shifting itself is something I majorly dislike in relation to a bunch of character stuff especially pertaining to these two, but if I dare say maybe having the characters have very little qualms about offing themselves at the drop of a hat is at best boring and dull and lessens the impact of literally everything that's come in their stories before and why should I care about getting Akane to survive in 999 if we're treating every timeline as equally devoid of merit well then that'd be kind of missing the point of the many timelines bullshit wouldn't it? Life is unfair, yadda yadda, nihilism doesn't inherently bother me I'm a Hello charlotte fan for fucks sake but here we are, I won't even pretend Akane going on about the anthropic principle didn't capture something kinda special for me, but you know what absolutely irked me? The q-team epilogue, that just goes hey, and what if, we tried to split the timeline even faaaarther back before literally everything, doesn't even solve the nonary game existing by the way but the Kurashikis probably wouldn't end up involved how about that huh no 999 then huh that's like a microcosm of what bugs me through the whole game, that's where it hurts where it doesn't only present this idea of hey what if nothing has inherent meaning to it and shit just changes based on circumstance as it's only philosophical backbone it Also constantly points at things and iconography from the past games because it knows they're things you've already embed with meaning, and then it scrambles and shuffles them until it's a purposefully shallow and inconsequential backdrop. Did Phi need to get incinerated? No, but you remember when Akane did so it'll pull on the heartstrings easier if that's how she dies. Why is the mystery person going by Q? He has way too many aliases and none of them relate to the letter, but hey remember the twist about the last door? Remember bases? Did you know the CQD thing is a reference to the distress signal used before SOS? Remember when we were on a ship? Well it doesn't really matter, because nothing does, but we can't get that point across without familiarity. The narrative is about that idea, 15 seconds of anime speech at the ending don't change that, and in a way that just ends up undermining every other game that came prior. It is not about these characters anymore.

Tldr; I greatly prefer Junpei in 999 and would have appreciated if ztd at least gave him more to do than propose and I think not getting specifics on his background hurts that whole development for him. Akane though while I still prefer her in the context of 999 I greatly appreciate most of the characterization she gets in ztd and I end up falling back on it even when imagining her going through the second nonary game, I just wish she also remembered Aoi exists and had things related to her past trauma actually bother her. Lastly I ranted about how I think shifting as it's handled in ztd kneecaps their characters and even the whole story of the franchise for me, and how the reason for all these draw backs is that, aside from 999, the time travel is the main character and not the actual characters.

So there you go!

[miserabull]

A very long meta-analysis on P2 Bad Grief

So, I've gone over every dialogue with this guy a few times, and there is some stuff I've never seen addressed before. This is a mix of analyzing and theory that have been in my head for a while, and I’d love to know if it all also makes sense to other people

The thing about Classic and P2 Grief, is that they are very different characters playing the same role. Who is Bad Grief? A thief, a kingpin of the town's criminal underbelly, and a smuggler working for Big Vlad. In P1, he's also a dangerous murderer who kills people for fun, but denies it, even claims that he kicks people out of his gang for daring to take up knives. Dude lies a lot. In fact, he maintains the lie up until the last route, the Changeling's, and then tries that on her too but ends up confessing. This is my very wordy way of saying that while I kinda agree with people who are like "he's not a violent murderer like P1 Grief", P1 Grief also claimed to not be one up to the last minute. I don't think they are making him a sadistic killer this time, yeah, but I'm pretty sure he's a liar, and that there's a darker secret. The game implies Grief keeps his cards close to his chest and there is more to him several times, like here, when you talk with Lara's reflection

Lara's Reflection: You see, she puts her stock in deeds and not in words. So Stakh was always close to her; for he would hear his heart, and act. A trait you share, Burakh.

Haruspex: And the most taciturn of us all, Bad Grief.

Lara's Reflection: He speaks so much yet does so much more.

or when Artemy confronts him at Aspity's Hospice:

Bad Grief: You heard about Rubin? Know why the Kin wants him dead? He's walkin' around all downcast, doesn't sleep. Says not to ask. Says it's safer like that. What's he done, I wonder? I wanted to ask Sahba, but maybe you know?

Haruspex: You're lying. That's not what you wanted to ask. I can tell.

Bad Grief: If I did lie, I wouldn't tell you the truth now anyway, would I? So back off. 

I'm not gonna go over the blowing-the-train tracks quest now, though I have some thoughts on it/what I think might be his plan there. For now it suffices to say that that whole thing is very odd, that his plan doesn't make sense(yeah, blowing up the tracks is a bad idea for his business. kinda meaningless though if the alternative is being hanged). That is to say, I'm pretty sure there's a hidden agenda there that we're probably only finding out in Changeling route.

So, what I mean is, if you think P2 Grief is harmless, or just a clown, or became a gang leader by accident, then, well. I think honey, you got a big storm comin'

A few more notes on Grief's character, and what I think of what we got so far:

-I believe the reflection(I have some thoughts about the nature of those too, actually lmao) is telling the truth, mostly. He is terrified, he doesn't want Artemy to think badly of him, he never wanted violence. P2 Grief is younger, more sympathetic, and very obviously more scared than his P1 counterpart. I don't think he's out there killing for fun. Still, I think he has a lot of blood on his hands anyway.

-I think his loyalty to his friends is sincere. He's kind of really big on companionship and loyalty, which fits, as a gang member. I really think that he wants to belong, to a gang, to a friend group, somewhere. Artemy mentions he's "always been weird" a couple of times, or stuff like "I knew you'd end up like this." and that thing with Lara's reflection... I think Grief was always a little bit on the margins, even in his own friend group, and that's why he made a place for himself as the leader of the misfits, of the people who don't fit what the town considers to be good society. I gotta get on with this because this is gonna be long enough without me rambling about every single thought and feeling I have about this bastard though

-He doesn't give away Stakh's hideout accidentally because he's goofy and dumb. He mentions more or less where it is like, three times. I think it's obvious that he's practically asking Artemy to go check on him, but he doesn't want to be a snitch, so he plays the fool like "Oooh no I gave you a hint, I sure hope you don't go looking for him now, don't ask me because I’d never tell!!". He's playing the clown, he's not that stupid

Okay, now we're getting to the heart of things. In P1, along with the reveal that he's actually a violent murderer who played another violent murderer(Barley) into taking the fall for his crimes, we get something else: he's working under the patronage and protection of Vlad Olgimsky. In P2, they put a lot more emphasis on that, Grief will tell you about it in the first AND second conversation you have. There is even a certain imagery associated with it... actually, allow me a quick digression here, I wanna go over some motifs around Grief. 

Grief is pretty into clockwork and gears, going by his choice of decoration for his Lair. The town itself is compared to a machine several times, by himself, by Big Vlad, and regarding how the Kains view it. I risk to say that the way Grief sees it is rather different from the Kains, at least at first.  For him it seems to be more of a blunt factory machine, while to the Kains...it means something else, more complex. Grief seems to have glimpsed what that is inside the Cathedral, near the end. That reminds me of something else, in the Diurnal End when Grief talks about how he used to be a clocksmith before, and now he's going to be "another kind of clocksmith", I don't think he's necessarily being literal in either case. Curiously, there's also a Clocksmith inside the Cathedral in Marble Nest...but I'm going off topic again

Bad Grief: Not a keeper of stores, but stories. This town, this great machine, the gears don't turn on their own, no, not till they're slick with secrets. 

But so, webs and puppets. We return to Vlad Olgimsky(old), who uses the metaphor of his “web”. There's also an important character in Grief's journey that is strongly associated with (spider)webs and strings, and that's Aglaya. The most notable time Grief himself refers to it though, I think, it's in the Theatre of Death, if you let him die:

“My path was not called 'The Spider'. No, think wider. It was 'The Silkworm'! The end of a railroad, I pulled strings firm; unaware someone more cunning pulled mine upstairs.”

So about that. He’s referring to the PTB right? Probably, but not only. A theme in Patho is like...these layers of manipulation. I’m gonna pass the mic to P1 Clara and Saburov for a second:

Alexander Saburov: Begin with the Olgimskys. That is the most important sin for me, and the least for him, for it is not his fault. So did Olgimsky protect his illicit trade? Did he benefit from it?

Changeling: He didn't just benefit; he presided over it. Grief was his stooge.

Alexander Saburov: Now then, we shall skip the issue of the barber gang, since it's clear now who their true mastermind was... thanks to your courage, my brave girl.

Changeling: Don't skip it just yet. Barley was as much of a puppet in Grief's hands as Grief himself was for Olgimsky. Everyone has their toys.”

Grief is a puppet in Vlad’s hands both in P1 and P2, as there he says he’s Vlads “eyes and ears” in the warehouses. In the Cathedral, he seems to more or less realize the extent of it, and how it goes against what he always wanted in the first place: to not be trapped by anything. 

Bad Grief: I used to be a thief, yet they made me a storekeeper. And what a perfect fit I made! I got my Warehouse kingdom, and with it, the insides of the Town's great machine. I kept Vlad's riches while havin' all I could dream of. Can't imagine a sweeter life.

Funnily enough, by that time he’s trapped in someone else’s web: Aglaya’s. That seems to be his thing, he thought he was in control and playing everyone, knowing all the secrets and pulling strings. In the end, he’s a Silkworm in the web of bigger fish. I mean, spiders.

Bad Grief: ...Yet they, too, are controlled by someone. Insane to think what kind of teeth you need for that.

But okay. Back to the start, I believe Grief has a lot of blood in his hands even before shit breaks loose. The things he seems to be most afraid of are also… interesting. This ties to his connection to Big Vlad, and the Kin.

Grief’s role in the payroll seems to be as a stool pigeon. He knows where everyone goes, what people are talking about, what they don’t want to become public. And he responds to Big Vlad. What I think is, hm, you know, even after Victoria passed it seems like the Kin and the Bull Enterprise never really defied Olgimsky, or had a leader in any way. Grief, too, seems to enjoy a pretty comfortable life for a gang leader. As an important piece to Vlad, he really doesn’t have that much to fear, since the guy “owns everything” and is very explicit to Artemy about how he can destroy anyone who doesn’t obey him. And probably has done that before. My guess is, Grief kept the machine working right by tattling, so no leadership or enemy to Vlad’s Enterprise could rise. I’d speculate that Vlad possibly paid the favor not only financially, but by maintaining Grief in that position. Basically, I think with Grief’s info, Vlad could eliminate any potential problem. That would mean that maybe without even having to shed blood himself there might be a lot of deaths Grief is responsible for, not to speak of the maintenance of that horrible system in the town. I think the route they are going for here is that Grief is a class traitor.

Why do I say that? Well, first let’s look at Grief’s relationship with the Kin: he’s remarkably close to them for a townie. Geographically, obviously, and also in the sense of living on the margins of society, but he also shares many of their superstitions, and seems to hold Aspity’s opinion in high regard(even calls her Sahba). I find it easy to believe that many of his men are part of the community as well, due to not being welcome in the town. At that time we see him in the Hospice though, and talking with the Kin people there, it’s pretty clear that they are planning some sort of uprising. That it’s imminent. Grief seems to know it. Seems to be absolutely terrified of that too, and to feel betrayed by Vlad.

Bad Grief: It's too late for me, Cub. I've only got one road ahead of me now. Perhaps the outbreak is for the best... Plagues are like fires, people forget old scores. And all hell will break loose here soon.

Haruspex: Any dark prophecies to share? You're the criminal mastermind here, after all.

Bad Grief: No need to prophesize. People fear hunger. Even honest workers will turn their hatchets and hammers to crime. Burglin' houses, lootin' corpses, guttin' each other. They will. Oh, they will.

Haruspex: Not all of them, Grief. Not all.

Bad Grief: The turf's so dry, you don't even need a match-a glare would start a fire. And when the Kin bares its teeth, that's when we'll all dance! They're slow on the start, but oh so fast on the draw! The Master likes them mute and obedient, but apathy makes them that way, not stupidity. They're only obedient till the time comes. And here it comes.

And the people who lose their jobs? They won't be too fond of staying home. They'll find new hobbies, like looking for food, or venting their anger. ...And Fat Vlad shut his facilities down the day before yesterday, didn't he? Crafty... Didn't whisper so much as a single word to me. Do you think he knew?

At the same time he seems to think that he deserves this, and it’s inevitable. “We reap what we sow”, paraphrasing him. He talks a few times about how there’s a vile beast inside each person in the town, about how they are all wretched and everything, including him, which I think might just be a way of coping like “yeah, I sold out, but anyone would do the same if they were in my place”. 

So, yeah. What I think is that Grief was a guy that had no power and money, with absolutely no perspective, who due to his very particular skills had an opportunity to climb up and took it(all while still getting to pretend he’s an outlaw, free from the chains of society!). And it’s...very bad. And he knows it’s very bad, and he’s not evil or sadistic, but he’s immature, cowardly, and desperately wants to be in control of his own destiny, and to not be alone, and all that. He’s still Artemy’s childhood buddy, a loyal friend, and someone who never really wanted to cause that much damage. He also knows that what he did is unjustifiable, and that no matter what he truly feels, the damage is done and he’s guilty of horrible shit.

[sylvain-ia]

What are your thoughts on the members of the Storm Hawks team?

My thoughts in general? The Hawks team is impressively balanced - each character has a personality trait that compliments and/or mirrors another member of the team. They just feel so familiar and effortless.

Character specifics? Here we go—

Aerrow: fiery redhead. At first, I thought he suffers a little bit as a character for having very few flaws to relate to — but it was really good to see his over competitive nature come through more as the series went on. I also love the parallel between him and Dark Ace. Having said that, he’s the most considerate and attentive to the team - he has to make sure they’re all ok and safe which is incredibly endearing; especially the bond between him and Radarr.

Finn: shooort goof with the level of confidence I can only dream of having. Usually, this kind of character doesn’t interest me because the ‘dude bro’ trope often has no character depth and was really common back in 2000’s. However, the writers made Finn really dynamic and genuinely fun to watch — I really didn’t expect to like him so much but I’m glad I was wrong. On a few occasions he falls into the the stereotype but for the majority of the show he actually grows as a character and bring out the fun in the other Hawks.

Junko: big softie. Rhino species are always cool imo. I wonder about the deeper meaning behind him being ‘weaker’ than regular Wallops; there seemed to be some foreshadowing significance to this. Also, I’m really curious about his living relatives — the Hawks are all referred to as orphans, yet he has cousins, nephews etc … do they check in on him or..? He deserves better.

Piper: fierce crystal mage who takes zero shit is everything I want to be. Piper doesn’t even care what anyone else thinks about her passions — she just pours herself into her fascination and interests. Plus she has the most relatable team working experiences of over preparation and planning just for everyone to completely ignore it. Despite this, she is integral and they know they need her too. Piper is awesome and ahead of her time.

Radar: little helpful lemur, rabbit, baby that absolutely has saved the Hawks from certain DOOM on multiple occasions but still needs protecting at all costs.

Stork: green string bean emo panic boi. Uncomfortably relatable comfort character. Strange and delightful , unaware of how intimidating they can be. Genuinely, at one point back when the show aired, thought he’d be the villain eventually but after the first few episodes I got the vibe that his dark moments are reserved for the people who try hurt the Hawks; he would do anything for them. But he can fight, yet the fear is dominant and his flight response takes over (or this is the best merbian tactic to isolating the enemy and I have been duped). Saaaad to know he was alone for so long on the Condor (I have a few head cannons about that too). Have also begun to noticed he’s deceptively tall, like taller than most characters at full posture. And his overall design is fascinating to unpack (I could do a full post on that alone YuY). Fully theorised maybe the reason Stork is significantly older than the others is because the creators didn’t want parents complaining that a bunch of 14yo’s were flying an old (broken) airship. He’s basically the only one legally allowed to fly the ship - and this utterly cracks me up to think about.

Fun fact: I only found out the Hawks were teenagers a few months ago. When I was a kid, I never researched into shows I watched, so I fully assumed Hawks were a bunch of adults. They just looked like adults compared to other ‘kids’ in the show and they were waaay too independent and capable; they live on an airship, fly their own skimmers, engineer machines and fight people. The coolest thing I did at 14 was ride my scooter into a pond.

I could keep going all day but I’ll stop gushing for now. These are just my silly thoughts and ideas :3

[helisol]

dude im not sure you will get it after reading this either, but you Can read it now

okay so first of all do not expect me to adhere to rules of grammar or Proper capitalisation, I am writing from the heart

so it’s been said before by other people but if Quark and Odo didnt look like the aliens that they are but instead like two regular prettybois the fandom would do cartwheels over their dynamic and Not call them a crack ship. because really, their dynamic fucking SLAPS and I’m here to tell you Why.

their surface-level dynamic is “Respected and Talented Security Chief and Cunning Immoral Businessman who are in Love but pretend not to be” and that's just an off-brand version of enemies to lovers! which is excellent and for some people that’s all you really need to get invested in a ship.

but some people look at it and go “Hm, no, that’s not enough. I mean, they work as friends but it doesn’t really have to be romantic.” and to that I say you are Absolutely Valid, not everything has to be romantic.

it just so happens that these two fuckers have one of the most compelling romance stories ever, and it’d be a shame not to explore it.

so before I dive into the internalised homophobia and repression, I’d like to take a moment to talk about Quark as a character.

because if you have brainworms like me you can kind of see that its an honest to god greek tragedy.

this guy comes from a race of people where being kind, ethical and fair is considered Abnormal and Horrifying. and I’m not gonna call Quark out of all people kind, ethical or fair but,,, 

you ever notice how he’s A Much Better Person Than Pretty Much All Other Ferengi?

dont get me wrong, Quark is still a bastard, but every once in a while his True Character shines through. and I say True Character because guys,,, the way he behaves around other people is an Act. he’s pretending to be something he’s not.

he has to try so hard to be a good ferengi it’s honestly painful to watch at times. because he is a SHIT ferengi! 

he loves his friends- because that's what the ds9 crew are. they’re his friends! and it makes him miserable because that's not! normal! for a ferengi!

let’s compare Quark and Rom for a second. 

Quark reeks of self loathing because a lot of the time he just Doesn’t act like a ferengi is supposed to, and this drives a lot of conflict in the show. he knows how a ferengi should act, it’s just that he can’t!! fucking!! do it!! but he still tries and tries to fit into that mold, which straight up ruins his life on multiple occasions.

Rom is also not a Model Ferengi, but he lives without hating himself. and it’s mostly because he doesn’t care about how a ferengi Should act, he’s loved and cared for even when everybody knows that he’s a shit ferengi! because his non-ferengi-ness works to his benefit. it encourages and highlights his abilities as an engineer. the success and love he finds make it easy for him to be content with his true self. Unlike Quark, who doesn’t get unconditional love from anyone.

its so!! tragic!! because you can see what Quark is really like!! his true self!! he’s a nice guy who cares for people!

its right there all the time and it's so blatantly obvious. especially in episodes like “Body Parts”, “Bar Association”, “The Way Of The Warrior” and “Ferengi Love Songs”

his own wiki page literally calls him “a compassionate and generous man by ferengi standards” which pretty much translates to “not really a good ferengi”.

anyway so Quark is a tragic figure or whatever but we’re actually here for the REPRESSED! HOMOSEXUAL! TENDENCIES! that he and Odo both exhibit.

with characters like garak you don’t really need to have brainrot to pick up on those tendencies, because that was something andrew robinson chose to do, on purpose. 

and to be fair, Quark wasn’t intended to be Any kind of representation, not even by the actor. I’m just pointing out that he Does look and act and talk like a little gayman.

I will admit that he is Painfully Straight in the text of the show, but on a meta level he’s just. a dude who has a serious case of repressing his real personality. and taking it a step further- he also represses his feelings towards another man.

and that man is Odo.

a few things on him:

Odo is literally desperate to be a person. unlike Quark, who at least has the comfort of belonging to a society of people with a set of rules and expectations, Odo has never met anyone or anything like him in all his years of life.

like, we all know Odo basically grew up in a lab, right? 

with people who didn’t know anything about him. who he was so unalike that they literally called him “Nothing”

but he still learned to look and talk and act like them (because if he didn’t he’d feel *pain* which is very fucked up by the way?)

so we know for a fact that Odo wants to be recognised as a person- which is why he tries really hard to conform to the ideals of the society that raised him. instead of exploring his nature as a shape shifter he maintains a humanoid form, picks up a job and creates an entire personality around what he wants to be seen as. but not what he really is.

and that's the thing that causes all the conflict between Quark and Odo. the type of person odo wants to be seen as is the polar opposite of whatever the fuck quark wants to be seen as.

In the same way that Quark acts like a Normal Ferengi, Odo acts like a Normal Security Officer.  and in a cruel twist of fate, the Ferengi happens to be the antithesis of the Security Officer.

If you only look at them as the things they act like, and not the things they are, you might say they’re way too different to like each other, right? 

but,,, if you think about the fact that they’re both putting on this act,,, this performance of idealised versions of themselves,,, you can see that they are The Same. They Are Both Gay Repressed Loser Aliens Who Try To Act Like Things That They Aren’t!

Imagine you’re Odo. 

Imagine that you’re Nothing, because you’re not like anything anyone has ever seen- and because you are Nothing you don’t fall in love with anyone for years and years. since who could love something that isn’t like them at all?

But then one day this Thing shows up in your path and you just hate it. Because it’s not like anything *you* have ever seen. It’s disorderly and looks grotesque and it’s criminal to boot.

It’s all the things you learned would make a “Bad Person” It’s everything you aspire not to be, because if you were any of those things you would BE PUNISHED.

But the trouble is, eventually he’s not an “it” anymore, he’s “Quark” and you see him every day of your miserable little life because you live on the same damn station in space and it’s hard to avoid each other.

He also happens to be one of the only things in your life that are constant. He will never leave because he is stubborn and greedy and you just *hate him so much* that you’re convinced he must be doing all of it to spite you. And yet you also can’t seem to leave him alone.

So Odo Must Hate Quark. everything else is a non sequitur for him. he can’t not hate Quark.

because Quark is, and i’m sincerely sorry to apply christian fucking imagery to this, The Forbidden Fruit.

If he liked quark he’d admit some kind of moral failing. it would be the end of his act. but on the other hand...it might be a good thing, because at least he could have quark.

but Odo can never go through with biting into this apple because the consequences are horrifying to him. he could never have quark because, according to his performance, he would Never like quark to begin with.

and here’s a take for you: Odo's Brand Of Internalised Homophobia Doesn't Stem From Heteronormativity. It Stems From The Fact That He Was Kind Of Assigned Asexual At Birth.

and the show sort of alludes to this, for real! not just subtext! canon! except the writers used the wrong person. 

because instead of Odo having these Forbidden Feelings for Quark he has them for,,, Kira.

but since this is My Quodo Manifesto you’ll understand that i am 100% willing to just toss that part of canon out the airlock.

so Odo does canonically have that mindset of “no one could ever love me”  for decades he repressed any and all feelings of love to avoid getting hurt. in the show he breaks this cycle of repression when he takes a chance and enters a relationship with Kira. yay?

but we all know that aint it chief. and part of the reason why That Ship Ain’t It is the fact that Quark is Right There. and he is simply the more interesting choice for odo.

he and Odo literally share the same problem and have weird intertwined character arcs! they are both dreadfully afraid of not conforming to the ideal versions of themselves, so they reject everything that could challenge their Performance!

on some fucked up level they hate each other *and* themselves individually. and this hatred makes them reject parts of their real identities for the sake of protecting their image. which. yknow. in gay people. is internalised homophobia!

so you can see that they’re both repressing A Lot even if you view them as Friends, but the most important thing in this kind of romantic dynamic is usually,,, when the characters *stop* repressing.

and the thing is. the thing that Kills Me with these two. They Never Get That Moment. Thats Why You Need The Brainrot To See Them As Romantic.

The Ascent gives us an example of what happens when they both take their act too far. I mean, who could forget “Fascist!” and “Fraud!” That is what odo thinks of quark’s performance and vice versa, but we don’t really hear them adress the fact that they *are* playing these roles to a ridiculous extent.

We also never get an example of what would happen if they dropped their act instead of over-performing it. or rather we don’t get to see both of them drop it.

And the reason why we never get that moment is because there’s this one key difference between Quark and Odo. 

Quark knows that he’s constantly repressing his true nature and his feelings for odo. We pretty much hear him say so in the iconic root beer scene in Way Of The Warrior. he knows that he’s not a good ferengi but he keeps up his act.

So quark is aware enough to feel that sweet sweet self loathing. But Odo isnt self loathing as much as he is just self sabotaging.

and this subtle difference between them is why, at the very end of the show, we get “That man loves me, can’t you see? It was written all over his back!”

this moment is quark dropping his act and asking odo to do the same. he wants to hear a genuine Goodbye from him because they have known each other for Decades and they are Friends. but odo is so unable to express the feelings he’s been repressing all these years. that he self sabotages again and just walks away.

even though this is like. very anticlimactic. considering I just spent 2000 words talking about how Odo and Quark are Most Certainly Gay For Each Other.

The fact that their ending is so Weird is the reason why quodo is so engaging and appealing to me? especially post-canon quodo.

like, the amount of “what if’s” this ship has are Astounding.

What if either of them had dropped their act a little sooner? What if they both did, for just a moment, and it was the straw that breaks the camels back?

What if Odo comes back after a few years? What if Quark comes to get him?

What if, in that moment in the finale where Quark drops his act, Odo had returned the gesture? What if Gag-Reel Quodo Kiss.gif Real?

with the depth that I read into their relationship, those what ifs are really fun to think about.

anyway its 1 am and i’m not an english major so literary analysis is not like, my strong suit. plus most of this was written in a late night screaming session with a friend who has the exact same opinions as me. i just think aliens hot and in love. thats all.

[sineala]

A Few Thoughts About Hurt/Comfort

I have been asked this month to make a post about hurt/comfort in Avengers comics. And I love h/c -- I actually have a massive number of WIPs right now that are h/c -- so I am very happy to talk about it! Anyway, this is not really all that planned out and this mostly turned into an excursus on Tony Stark's pain. I'm sure you're all surprised.

Like pretty much everyone else, I'm sure, I have found that everything lately has been... pretty tough. And the coping mechanism that really got me through last year and this year was reading and writing a lot of h/c, on the theory that, however lousy a day I'm having, I can absolutely make sure that Tony Stark has a worse one. And then I can make sure he gets hugs. Wish fulfillment? Why, yes. (Once at Hallmark I was trying to find a "get well soon" card, forgot what it was called, and described it to my wife as "a hurt/comfort card.") I think Marvel Comics -- the Avengers side, in particular -- is an interesting canon for h/c for a lot of reasons. Though, honestly, if you asked me to recommend you, a hurt/comfort fan, a new fandom, I would probably just hand you some Starsky & Hutch DVDs. Go watch "The Fix" and get back to me later. If you like that, there's way more where that came from. But there's still lots to love in Marvel! Superhero comics are really a goldmine as far as the hurt side of h/c. Because superheroes, and you probably have noticed this, get hurt a lot. They get hurt repeatedly, in fantastical ways that are probably impossible in real life both physically and emotionally (at least, I don't think anyone's invented mind control yet), and even the heroes without superhuman healing powers tend to get physically hurt a whole lot worse than actual people can take. Currently in Iron Man comics, Tony has a broken back and is dealing with this by locking himself into the armor as a backboard and injecting himself with massive doses of painkillers. He's busy! He's got stuff to do! He doesn't have time to lie around and heal! So, basically, if you name a kind of pain that you would like to see happen to a character, it's probably happened to superheroes. Multiple times. The downside, though, is that comics do not really deliver that well when it comes to the comfort part of h/c. They could. It's not inherent to the medium that they don't. But because of the serial nature of comics and also the fact the primary audience is dudes who want to read about people in spandex punching each other, a lot of the time they don't really feel the need to provide closure and write about people dealing with any of the hurt. (Raise your hand if you're still annoyed with the end of Hickman's Avengers run.) But at the same time, I think that's a quality that makes Avengers ripe for h/c fanfic. Because, generally speaking, fandom likes to provide the things that canon doesn't, and fandom is more than happy to provide the comfort. If you enjoy canonical h/c in comics, I think you really can't go wrong with Iron Man. One of the big innovations of modern Marvel Comics was the concept that heroes would also suffer from relatable human problems, and in practice what this means is that a lot of heroes start with a fully-loaded angst-ridden backstory and origin story, ripe for h/c. So Tony starts out by incurring a heart injury that he fully expects is going to kill him, which he responds to by vowing he won't get close to anyone so they won't be sad when he dies, and throughout the early Silver Age is constantly on the brink of death as his heart nearly gives out on him practically every issue. And then even after his heart gets (mostly) better, there are various plots involving his armor being detrimental to his health and him choosing to fight on anyway. It's hard for me to think of another superhero hitting that particular variety of h/c in exactly the same way. Sure, superheroes risk their lives constantly, because this is how superhero comics work, but Tony is the only one I can think of who is this constantly this badly off, physically. Like, think of all the other heroes who have had a continual solo presence as fan favorites across Marvel history -- Captain America, Thor, Spider-Man, Wolverine, maybe even Deadpool. You know what those guys all have? Healing factors! For the most part, they are not running around continually on the verge of death, and while there are certainly memorable arcs involving several of them being severely injured and/or dead, you really have to work at it. It's not their constant state of affairs, whereas Tony is the kind of superhero who shows up to a fight already bleeding out under his armor. Yeah, I know Extremis gave him a healing factor. But he didn't have it very long, and also he did some extremely dangerous things while he did have it; I'm pretty sure I've never seen Wolverine saying that he'll just solve a problem by cutting off his own foot. So, anyway, yeah, there are a bunch of good arcs involving h/c for Tony. If you're looking for physical injury, he has a whole bunch of heart problems over the years, gets several new hearts, then ruins his brain, et cetera. That level of hurt is basically the background pain of Tony's life; every so often, his heart will get damaged or he'll have to live in the armor or the armor will be killing him, et cetera. If you're looking for more unusual trauma, I am, as always, going to rec Manhunt, a relatively obscure arc in late v3 (IM v3 #65-69) in which Tony has an extremely bad week. His tech is stolen and used to bomb a building. Then he gets shot in the chest. Then while he's at the hospital a nurse tries and fails to poison him, and she then tries to beat him to death. Then he checks himself out of the hospital and a helicopter shoots missiles at him. Then he becomes a fugitive from justice. And then, oh, yeah, he has to fight the Mandarin. It is... a lot. (Volume 3 of Iron Man is pretty good as far as h/c possibilities. You've got a lot of physical pain, Carol's drinking arc, the Sentient Armor, both DreamVision arcs, and Manhunt. Manhunt is finally supposed to be out in trade this month, by the way.) There are of course the drinking arcs, which probably count as their own type of hurt. But if you haven't read the second drinking arc (IM #160-200), please do. Marvel likes to up the stakes on events (Fear Itself, Secret Empire) by making Tony drink, and it does work, I think. I feel like I've spoken at length about Tony's drinking elsewhere so I don't really want to rehash it all here. And then there's the emotional pain. Angst and drama is something that happens to a whole bunch of characters, yes, especially in comics, but somehow Tony seems to end up with possibly more than his fair share of it. Fandom likes to make a lot of Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, so much so that you might think, if you didn't know canon, that this was just fandom running with a throwaway mention of Tony's terrible childhood and making it worse. But, no, canon really does go there with a reasonable amount of frequency. Howard's actual first appearance is in a flashback where he's ordering teenage Tony to break up with his girlfriend because she's the daughter of one of Howard's business rivals. And then we get into the verbal abuse, and the physical abuse, and the time Howard made Tony take his first drink, and the part where Howard was a demon in hell who Tony fought while he insulted him. And more! Currently, in canon, Howard is alive again and is in league with Mephisto for the express purpose of ruining Tony's life. Also when Tony was a baby, Howard tried to trade him to Dracula. I think you can make an argument that fandom is actually showing restraint when compared to canon. Tony also has a whole lot of Terrible Exes whose presence and/or former presence in Tony's life can be used for a lot of hurt. If you've read any amount of fanfic, you probably know that the exes who get the most play in fandom are Sunset Bain and Tiberius Stone -- not that Tony and Ty were ever canonically a couple, of course, but fandom is definitely enamored of this idea. Ty and Sunset both have relatively similar interactions with Tony in canon, in that they are both liars and emotional abusers, heavy on the gaslighting, with the purpose of becoming more successful than Tony. They both also attempt to murder Tony, although this is after he figures out they're evil, at least. (Yes, I know, this is not how either of them usually appear in AUs.) Tony also has a bunch of exes who also have just straight-up tried to murder or otherwise hurt him, sometimes while they are dating, and sometimes before Tony dates them: Whitney Frost, Indries Moomji, Kathy Dare, and Maya Hansen come to mind. There are probably more I'm not thinking of! But, yes, if you want to write about a guy in a series of terrible relationships, please consider Iron Man comics. If mind control is one of your favorite flavors of hurt, Tony's pretty good for that too. We all know about The Crossing. I suppose when I say "mind control" I mostly mean "armor control" because there are an awful lot of plots where someone else makes Tony's armor do whatever they want it to do and Tony is along for the ride -- Demon in a Bottle, Sentient Armor, and Execute Program are the first things that come to mind. There is also a fairly obscure What If that is What If Iron Man Lost The Armor Wars in which Justin Hammer apparently really wants Tony in a mind control collar to take off all his clothes and lounge around in his underwear. No, really. I think a lot of pain for Tony often revolves around his issues with control, generally -- his alcoholism comes into play here again. The entire aftermath of Civil War is also notable for its propensity to hurt Tony over and over and over. Is he stoically soldiering on through his grief after Steve dies? Hell, no! He cries, like, six separate times. He 100% blames himself for Steve's death. It's great. Everybody loves The Confession and the funeral in Fallen Son, but one of my personal favorites is Avengers/Invaders, in which Tony is confronted with a time-traveling Steve from WWII and in order not to screw up the timeline, he can't tell Steve he knows him. He is clearly not coping well. He shuts himself in a room with a giant wall of pictures of Steve! Also there's a part where he has to try to convince Steve he can trust him and he ends up having to tie Steve to a chair to talk to him, and Steve looks at him and asks, "Who did you kill to get where you are?" and I feel like that is probably one of the worst moments in Tony's life. No wonder he gave himself amnesia. So now we might want to ask, okay, but why is hurting Tony in fanfiction so much fun? I mean, I can tell you why I think it's fun. I can't speak for anyone else. One reason is that he is very emotional and very affected by everything he does. Sometimes you will see people complaining that the heroes of m/m fanfic cry too much and this is not realistic. This is not a problem if you're writing Tony! He can cry as much as you want and it's perfectly in character. I don't think it would be as fun to hurt him if he didn't express so much of his pain. But he does. He also feels guilty, and for me that's a very satisfying character element. If he were well-adjusted and didn't blame himself for so many things, it wouldn't be nearly as fun as watching him blame himself for everyone whose death he thinks he is responsible for, whether or not he is. And then he just keeps going, and it's, y'know, nice to watch him be resilient, too. So, I guess, I think hurting him is interesting because it's easy to hurt him, his weak points are pretty obvious, and he reacts a lot. Steve doesn't hurt quite as much as Tony does, in canon. It's certainly possible to hurt him -- I mean, they did actually kill him after Civil War, after all -- but I don't think the canonical patterns of hurting him are as numerous. Obviously deseruming Steve is a fairly popular go-to in terms of physical hurt; he's been deserumed at least three times that I know of. I think's easy to see the appeal there of taking a character who is fairly physically resilient and making him... much less so. Certainly Marvel seems to see the appeal. But other than that I don't think he has any other really common way to get physically injured. Unlike Tony, whose origin story is basically "oh no, I've acquired a disability," Steve's origin story is "I drank a serum that cured all my disabilities." Which, I mean, great wish fulfillment but there's not really as much there to poke at. Pretty much all of Steve's pain is emotional, but, unlike Tony, his pain isn't often specifically in response to someone directly, purposefully hurting him. Hickman's Avengers run is a big exception, yes. His pain seems to come up most often as a kind of situational angst. He feels like a man out of time. He feels out of touch with the modern era, with people his own age. He feels guilt because he feels responsible for Bucky's death. He feels like he can't trust the government and therefore he can't be Captain America. He worries that he doesn't know how to have a normal life. And, yes, these are deep and important worries but it's different than, like, Indries Moomji dumping Tony with the intent to make him sad enough to start drinking. Very few of Steve's villains want to personally ruin Steve's entire life the way Tony's villains do; mostly they just want to do things like bring back the Nazis. In terms of Steve's potential for h/c, I think Steve is harder to hurt than Tony is. Physically, he is definitely harder to hurt. You can deserum him, sure, but unless you want everything you write to be a deseruming fic you're probably not going to want to do that more than a couple of times. And if you want to hurt him physically while he has the serum, you have to hurt him hard. Usually past the point where a regular human would ever survive it. He's also harder to break, emotionally, than Tony is -- which means it's very satisfying when you can get him to break, but this is a guy who's only cried twice (that I remember) in canon. So if you want to get him to cry, you really, really have to wreck him, and he doesn't have as many obvious weak spots. He also doesn't generally sit around blaming himself for things that aren't his fault, and the whole "stewing in guilt" genre of plots for him basically came down to "he was sad that he thought Bucky's death was his fault," and that's really the biggest regret he seems to have, and also Bucky's not dead anymore. The Steve/Tony relationship itself, I would think, is also appealing to h/c fans because canon provides a lot of ways for them to hurt each other. Some people only ship pairings who would never, y'know, take turns beating each other half to death in major event comics. (And for a lot of Marvel Comics history, that was also Steve & Tony, so if you want them to be BFFs who have never fought, you can just set your fic earlier.) They have definitely hurt each other both physically and emotionally, so if you're looking for something easy and satisfying as a h/c fan, you can just read or write something where they... make up. What about Marvel characters other than Steve and Tony? Surely some of them are angsty, yes? Well, yes, but also it depends on the particular flavor of angst that you like. If you like the way Tony hurts, you may very well enjoy Doctor Strange comics, because they have a very similar attitude towards life -- they are both former alcoholics whose origin stories involve physical disabilities, who routinely make tactical decisions that negatively affect their continued existence and/or happiness a whole lot. It's very much an "I must suffer alone in the dark and no one will ever know what I am doing to save the world but it's the right thing to do" sort of vibe. Like, you can read comics where Strange is lying in hell with two broken legs, hallucinating that Clea has finally come to save him. Strange's biggest fear, akin to Tony's control issues, is basically that one day he's going to be an asshole again, so he's out there trying as hard as he can to do good. Also, if you like tentacles, he has all of them. I mean that. Carol also occasionally hits similar angst spots, and her drinking arc is great. A lot of people like Natasha, too; I have read zero Black Widow comics but I get the impression many people enjoy her brand of angst. The mutant metaphor is a little different in terms of overall vibe, but some people really like it as a source of angst -- the whole "protecting a world who hates and fears them" thing. It may not work for you, but if you like your hurt to include things like systemic oppression, go pick up some X-Men comics. Start with something like God Loves Man Kills. I feel like I liked this sort of thing a lot more as a teenager but that I kind of aged out of liking the mutants quite so much. It's also worth mentioning that not everything that hits the spot in one universe will be the same in the others, and I'm mentioning this because I feel like I have to say something about MCU Bucky. MCU fandom seems to get a lot of mileage out of Bucky's guilt about being the Winter Soldier, everything he was forced to do, et cetera. I have definitely read my share of those fics, and FATWS sure went right for that angst too. But as far as I can tell, he doesn't hit the same way at all in 616. And I like him a lot in 616; I'm always pleased when he shows up on a team. (He was so good in Strikeforce. Everyone was so good in Strikeforce.) But the thing is, 616 Bucky is, basically, phenomenally well-adjusted, given everything he's gone through, and I'm including the time he wrestled a bear in a gulag. He gets over having been the Winter Soldier, and now he's just, y'know, a guy with a cool arm who likes to bring guns to every fight to horrify his teammates, and he snarks at Clint. If you're looking for that angst, that is really not him these days. He's all better. So pretty much all that is canon. So what do we do in fandom for h/c? Well, as far as I can tell, a decent amount of it is canon-based or very canon-close -- there are a whole lot of stories exploring the angst of Civil War or Hickman's Avengers run. Tony's drinking comes up a fair amount, and if one of Tony's Evil Exes comes back to haunt him, it's pretty much only Tiberius Stone. I don't think I've read a lot of fic with Steve getting deserumed; it doesn't seem as popular in fandom as in canon. When Steve gets hurt, he tends to just get physically whumped pretty hard, and there's a fair amount of that for Tony too, but of course Steve can take more. There's also a thriving, uh, subgenre of pain involving Hydra Steve doing terrible things to Tony, presumably the terrible things he would have wanted to do to Tony in canon if Tony had had a flesh body. There's the usual kinds of h/c setups that appear in basically every fandom as well -- sickfic, whump, dub-con/non-con. You get the idea. But since fandom in general likes to take specific inspiration from canon, there's a lot of fic where the hurt tends to resemble things that happen more in canon. Like, I feel like comics fic probably has more tentacle fic and more mind control than canons that don't come pre-stocked with those. Probably everybody has a whole lot of "tied up by bad guys," though. And then, of course, fandom brings the comfort that canon does not. This is true in pretty much every fandom -- I mean, you aren't going to find a lot of actual canons where Character A saves Character B from mortal peril and then there's gay sex -- but, like I was saying, comics don't provide a lot of closure before it's onto the next thing. Usually with a different creative team, who has no interest in wrapping up anything from the last team. Steve and Tony talked about the incursions exactly once after Secret Wars and nobody mentioned the part where Steve spent several months trying to hunt Tony down and kill him. Tony is never going to remember the events of Civil War. Hydra Steve died ignominiously in a fire and no one has ever talked about him again. Honestly, if you're looking for a way to get some comfort in your fanfic, picking an event, any event, and just having the characters talk about it will be way more than any of them get in canon. I feel like honestly that can often be a pretty satisfying to read. And even though comics canon physically hurts characters pretty often and pretty badly, they also often skip right past the recovery. Maybe you'll get one page of a character in a hospital bed at the end of the story arc. Maybe you won't. Demon in a Bottle has one splash page of Tony going through alcohol withdrawal and then he's all better. I think Manhunt skips to Tony getting out of the hospital at the end. That's just not a story that they want to tell very often. The second drinking arc is notable in that it devotes almost as many issues to Tony's recovery as it does to getting him to rock-bottom. Similarly, Steve is done with his Nomad angst way way faster than you probably think he is (though The Captain does go in for a fair number of issues). So one of the things we often want to do in fandom is focus on all the bits that canon skips over, both in the "why did no one ever mention this story arc ever again" way and the "wow, so how long are they in the hospital after that" way. That's really all I can think of about h/c! I'm off to write some more of it!

[sarahjtv]

BNHA Chapter 308 Spoiler Thoughts: Beat His Ass, Young Midoriya!

Chapter leaks are out!  Full chapter hasn’t been revealed yet (and take what I say with a grain of salt until the official translations come out), but I think I have a pretty good idea of what’s going on.  Nothing super heavy, but it’s an action-packed chapter that shows us how much of a badass Deku has become since he left UA and went all vigilante on us.  So, let’s do this:

Before we get into the chapter, I need to mention our mangaka, Kohei Horikoshi-sensei’s comment this week.  He’s basically apologizing for taking a break last week, calling himself a “small-fry”, and promising to pick himself up.  Horikoshi deserved a break last week and he is by no means a “small-fry” for creating one of the best and most popular pieces of fiction in the last few years.  I hope that he knows that and that he shouldn’t blame himself for taking a break.  

So, the chapter picks up right where we left off!  Deku and Muscular’s battle begins and Muscular recognizes Deku’s voice.  He says that he’s been waiting for this moment as everyone else he’s faced have been weaklings compared to Deku.  As far as we know, Deku has been the only one to even beat Muscular by himself.  It took over 100% of his strength to do so, but Deku did manage to kick Muscular’s ass.  It makes sense why he’d want a rematch.

I need to take a moment here to talk about how awesome Deku looks in his Vigilante costume (as I’ve decided to call it).  The tattered clothing really works for him and the dark sclera around his eye adds to the effect.   Again, I love that he’s finally putting the bunny hood and metal mask to use.  I mean, he used them before, but not as a real part of his daily costume.  He looks almost like a completely different person with them on.  I’d be scared of Deku tbh.  

As the fight continues, he gives the injured Yo Shindo to his GF, Tatami.  Tatami can’t see Deku’s costume because of the smoke surrounding him, but she does kind of recognize his voice from somewhere.  I do wonder if Tatami’s going to put the pieces together and find out that the vigilante is Izuku Midoriya.  And I wonder if she’s going to get the word about his actions spreading and if that will reach our UA kids.  Or the news stations will, that might happen too.  

Speaking of smoke, DEKU UNLOCKED THE 6TH OFA USER’S QUIRK!  The 6th user is the Tobio Kageyama-looking dude with the long collar (He’s cute btw 😳!) and his name is “En” which translated to smoke.  His Quirk is Smokescreen which explains the smoke surrounding Deku at the end of the last chapter.  Deku is using the Quirk too much, so he needs to calm down a bit and use each Quirk individually.  There’s actually quite a bit that Deku could use with a Quirk like Smoakscreen: He could hide himself for a sneak attack, he could use it as a distraction, use it if he needs to retreat, etc.  My mind immediately went to Pokémon (because of course it did) and how Team Rocket would constantly use moves like Smoakscreen and Haze to either distract Ash and Co. to confuse them or use a sneak attack, or run away from the protagonist.  It’s another support-type Quirk, but it’s a damn good one if used right. 

Edit: There’s a panel that shows the scale of how much Smokescreen Deku used and it’s A LOT.  Like, the smoke is covering several streets and it goes to the top of some buildings.  It’s hard for really anyone to see anything.  Deku’s really trying to keep himself in the shadows, I suppose.

To use all his Quirks well, En suggests that Deku think of each Quirk like a support tool.  So, Float is a jetpack, Black Whip is a long string of rope, Danger Sense is a radio, and Smoakscreen is a flare or some kind of smoke grenade (I don’t know the specific name).  This is a really good way of thinking for Deku since he’s been using object-focused metaphors for OFA before.  Remember the “Egg in The Microwave” and the “Turntable in The Microwave”?  Similar to that!

Edit: Fan-scans are out.  It seem like Deku is actively talking to En here as if he’s a little voice in his head guiding him on what to do.  My guess is that after his coma talk with the OFA Holders, Deku can now talk to the vestiges consciously.  He doesn’t need to enter a dream-like state to interact with him; it’s just a thing he can do willingly.

So, Deku uses each Quirk individually and finally ties Muscular down with Black Whip.  I can’t describe it, but it’s so cool to see Deku in action here absolutely folding Muscular.  He really has improved since their last fight. There’s one panel that has a close up of Deku’s masked face and he looks so damn cool!  I’m so tempted to color it when the official translations come out.

Deku is asking Muscular where AFO and Shigaraki are, but Muscular doesn’t know.  He also asks why Muscular is doing what he’s doing, but Muscular just responds that there is only blood and battle in his heart and  he doesn’t want to live a life where he regrets not fulfilling that (his name is revealed to be Gouto Imasuji btw.  Don’t know the translation behind that, but I assume it has to do with his Quirk and his violent personality).  So, this confirms that Deku is actively looking for Shigaraki and AFO.  He’s not just saving people left and right, but he is actively looking for the big bad on his own.  I can’t see that ending well without help unfortunately.  Deku’s also trying to reason with Muscular to see if there’s a different path for him similar to his fight with Gentle and LaBrava.  He’s really going for the “Save People’s Hearts” route and I can understand why.  That’s Deku’s character at its core.  It’s why he wants to try to save Shigaraki despite everything.  If there is a different path for a villain, then Deku will try to lead them to it.  Unfortunately, villains like Muscular don’t always have that path.  

Edit: Actually, you know what, how in the world did Deku know Muscular’s real name?  Did he see it on the news somewhere?  Did he do some research and manage to look it up?  Does he have someone to give him intel?  I mean, unless Muscular’s name was broadcast out there, his real name is some very specific information Deku got a hold of.  

Finally, as he remembers Shigaraki and Kota (the small boy Deku saved back in the Forest Training Camp), Deku runs towards Muscular with full speed and finishes him with one powerful punch!  Deku speeds past Muscular as we finally see his face again under the mask (Badass Deku🥵)!  One Punch Man has left the chat, my dudes.  For real, though, if Muscular really is defeated, it’s amazing how flawlessly Deku beat him.  Deku used every Quirk well and efficiently to dodge Muscular's attacks and pin him down so he could get a clean hit in.  Everything was calculated and executed perfectly.  This is not the Deku we knew back in the Training Camp Arc.    

Edit: Ok, it was explained that Shindo’s Vibration actually did effect Muscular’s Quirk.  Then tendons in his muscles were pulled and were starting to unravel.  That’s what made an opening for Deku to get a good hit in.  I think it would’ve been hard for Deku to knock Muscular out with one punch if that opening wouldn’t have been made.  So, Shindo wasn’t entirely useless.  

And that’s it from what I can gather!  Damn good action-packed chapter! A+ art and writing from Horikoshi once again!  This man just keeps bringing us 🔥.  I’m so glad to see Deku fight like the badass he’s meant to be.  I wish it didn’t have to take a war and several near-death experiences to get here, but Shonen gotta Shonen.  He knocked the lights out of Muscular, I almost feel sorry for him.  He got his ass kicked by the same kid twice in less than a year.  You should’ve stayed in Tartarus, my dude.  Really, all prisoners should’ve stayed in Tartarus.  If Deku can defeat Muscular, then none of them stand a chance against him now.  I can only assume Deku’s going to go after everyone who was associated with the LOV to find Shigaraki and AFO at this point.  Thankfully, we don’t have a break next week.  Will En teach Deku how to play volleyball?!?  I’m kidding!  I do want to know what our UA kids are doing, especially Bakugo, Shoto, and Uraraka.  This would be a good time to transition to them.  Like, they can see Muscular’s capture on the local news, put the pieces together, and go after Deku.  Or we could just keep focusing on Deku’s vigilante adventures, that works too!  

Me @ Deku: