#for decision making which is why teenagers are more emotional because they use the emotional brain part for decision making etc????

[chqnified]

For no reason whatsoever, my field of random studies today have been computer viruses and the development of the frontal lobe

[lewisvinga]

minha filha | neymar x teenage daughter! reader

requested; yes!

request; Neymar and teenage daughter, Where they get into a fight and it is very angst bur ends in fluff please❤️ and merry Christmas if you celebrate

note; merry christmas 2 u too if u also celebrate !<3

cw//mentions of underage drinking and smoking

masterlist !

“I can’t believe you, Y/n da Silva Santos.” Your father, Neymar, expressed his disappointment in you. He had caught you out drinking and smoking with friends after telling him you were going to study. To make it worse, Davi had also seen you and Neymar didn’t want him exposed to it yet.

“I didn’t even get drunk or high, so why does it matter?” You scoff as you sit down on the couch in the living room. Neymar sent Davi to his room to get ready for bed before going back to talk to you. He sat down across from you.

“Why does it matter, Y/n? Are you serious?” He scoffs, shaking his head at your reply.

You cross your arms, rolling your eyes. You thought that your father was being dramatic. All of your friends parents let them drink, some even let them smoke. You didn’t understand why it was such a big deal. “It’s no big deal, papai! Every normal teenager does it. It’s a normal teenage thing to do!”

“Are you serious, y/n? Not only were you drinking and smoking as a teenager in public, but you also lied to me? Saying you were studying?” Neymar tried to stay calm, but you kept resting his temper. He run his hands through his hair before covering his mouth with his hand, taking a moment to think. “I’ve seen your grades too, y/n. You had straight A’s a month ago, what happened?”

You look away from him, avoiding eye contact with him. You didn’t want to answer, you were already emotional and angry at everything. Neymar kept calling your name but you continued ignoring him.

“Y/n, give me your phone.” He finally says, standing in front of you and holding his phone out. You looked up at him and let out a gasp. Before you could even protest, he repeats himself, “Y/n. The phone.” You huff, reluctantly handing him your phone, “Now go to your room. I’ll talk to you once I’ve cooled off.”

You let out another huff as you stomped to your room, making sure to slam your door shut. Neymar lets out a sigh. He puts your phone in his pocket and goes to make sure Davi was ready for bed.

About an hour later, you heard a gentle knock on your bedroom door. “Come in.” You call out, setting the book that you were reading down next to you. Neymar slowly opens the door and sees you sitting on your bed.

He takes a deep breath as he sits down on your bed and faces you. “I know you may think I overreacted. I know many of your friends and classmates smoke and drink, but i’ve seen people i used to be close with who have fallen in too deep into drinking and smoking. I don’t want the same ending for you. I’m protective over you, I can’t help it. It’s my job as a father.

His words really made you think. You couldn’t help but feel guilty and stupid for falling for the persuasions of your friends. “I’m sorry. They wanted me to try and I wanted to fit in and-“

“It’s okay, minha filha.” Neymar interrupted you by giving you a warm reassuring hug to which you happily hugged him back. When he pulls away, he reaches into his pocket and takes out your phone.

“I want you to be smart with your decisions next time. I’m gonna give this back to you but I want you to bring your grades back up and make decisions for yourself, not because your friends tell you to do things.”

“I promise! I’ll study more and do my work!” You held your phone close to you, feeling joyful that you and your father were no longer in an argument.

“It’s late, you should go to bed soon.” He says as he stands up from your bed. He leans over and presses a kiss on your forehead, “Goodnight, minha filha.”

“Goodnight, papai.”

[crimsonwritings]

Flames in our hearts - Prologue

Pairing: Cassian x female reader

Summary: Cassian and Y/N both have to let their partners go.

Warnings: angst, some kind of panic attacks

Words: 2.4k

A/N: It’s finally here! The first part of my firefighter Cassian fic. I’m so sorry that I wasn’t able to post this earlier but I was overthinking which resulted in a writers block. I’ll try to post the next parts more regularly from now on. Hope you enjoy!

Masterlist | Moodboard

Y/N´s POV:

“So this is it then.”

Four years ago I would have never believed that him and I would ever be in this situation. Sitting in our small town café, nothing but an untouched glass of water in front of me, because I was physically incapable of consuming anything right now. Him being placed in the seat opposite of me, staring at the wall, the table and the wall again. Anywhere to avoid my gaze.

It probably looked like a break up scene straight out of a movie. Even the weather seemed to play along, as the sky was filled with dark grey clouds, rain pouring down to the earth. If angels existed I imagined those raindrops to be their tears as they mourned over the pieces of my shattered relationship. I wanted them to drown my emotions until I wouldn’t feel any of this pain right now. And if it meant that I wouldn’t be able to feel anything ever again so be it. I couldn’t care less.

“Yeah. This is it,” he answered. I knew that this decision wasn’t easy for him, could hear it in his silent, shaking voice. How much time had we actually spent together? One third of our lives? First as friends, before it had turned into something more, something intimate - something vulnerable.

He had been my first everything and oh, how I had wanted him to be my last. The one and only, like those fairytales always swoon about. Some part of me still wanted him to be just that. But fairytales aren’t real and my teenage dreams had to concede their space in my head to the cruel realities of this world.

“It used to be so easy with us but now…it just doesn’t feel like it did at the beginning. You became so distant and I know that to an extent it’s my fault but I don’t know what to do anymore. It’s frustrating me. I can’t live like this anymore. And it wouldn’t be fair to you either.”

How generous of him. Breaking up with me to spare my feelings. I didn’t know why it caused a rumble of anger to drive through my body. Didn’t I feel the exact same thing? Wasn’t it me who had questioned our relationship over the past months?

At least he was able to set me free. I on the other hand felt like a snake, meandering around his body and pushing my fangs in his skin, even though I knew I would poison him with my insecurities. I just couldn’t let go.

Because that was my greatest fear. Being left by someone I loved, someone who was supposed to love me back. It had made me doubt him at some point, when he had disappointed me one to many times with such little things. Suddenly I hadn’t been able to see the good things anymore, only the bad, which had resulted in me emotionally distancing myself, snapping at him when he told me I was a fool for doing so.

And now here we were, in the middle of that small town café, knowing that we weren’t able to make each other happy anymore. One side being controlled by her fears, the other driven by frustration, annoyance maybe. I couldn’t even blame him for feeling this way. For I couldn’t stand myself either. What used to be a loving relationship became a downward spiral pretty fast.

I knew that this was right. That I had to let him go to hopefully find his happiness, even if it meant that he would end up with someone else. If she could appreciate everything he had to offer then he was hers to claim, not mine. But why did it feel so damn wrong? Why was the thought of somebody else living my dreams with him worse than what we had now?

The merciless feeling of my panic rising up consumed me whole. I knew it all to well. It always started with that lump in my throat, swelling on and on until I feared I couldn’t breath anymore. It then resulted in a gag, as if my body tried to get rid of it by throwing up. Meanwhile I could feel the tears lining up, threatening to spill but never doing so, not granting me that sort of relief. I could feel the familiar cold running over my skin, causing me to shiver. My hands were already shaking so hard I had to grab the chair beneath me, so nobody would notice.

Calm down Y/N. Don’t you dare let them see your weakness. Nobody wants to see it.

But no matter how many deep breaths I inhaled to calm myself down, it didn’t work.

I wasn’t strong enough for this. I couldn’t let him go. Instead I needed him to take me in his arms, soothing me that everything would be all right, that he had overreacted and that we would work on it. Like we had promised each other so many times before.

My voice trembled as I begged him, “Please! I will become the girl you fell in love with again! All I need is time!”

Something deep down in me protested. Questioned why I had to beg him to love me. Why it was so important for me to be loved by him.

I didn’t listen. All I could hear were his final words.

“Stop making this any harder than it already is. You assured me of this so many times but I can’t believe you anymore. And it wouldn’t matter anyway. My love for you is gone Y/N. I feel nothing…I’m sorry.”

Something inside of me shattered at his words. Maybe it was the hope I still had left. To mend this. To get out of this nightmare. But now there was nothing left. He had made his choice and I could do absolutely nothing about it.

I couldn’t stand it anymore. Neither the beat of my heart getting painfully fast nor my breath being so flat that I feared I would faint. The tears started to run down my cheeks - finally - but it caused embarrassment to flow through me as I felt the stares of the strangers around me, starring and judging.

I almost jumped up from my seat and stormed out of the cafe, away from the pity and the pain.

He didn’t try to stop me.

~*~

Cassian’s POV:

“Say that again.” His words came out in a gasp.

He didn’t know how they had ended down here. Only a few minutes ago he had felt as if he could touch the sun! Finally, after so many years of pining after it, his life had become perfect, giving him wings of jauntiness! But it seemed like he had gotten to close to the radiant heat of the burning star, for now it felt like those exact wings had caught fire, causing him to race down towards the ground, to the predict of a devastating crash.

She alone could save him now.

But instead of throwing him something to grab onto in his fall she definitively shredded his wings to pieces, robbing him of any chance to survive.

“It’s over Cassian. I’m breaking up with you.”

There were no tears in her eyes as she said it. No signs of doubt on her face. She was sure in her decision and seemed utterly cold about it. Like an ice queen she stood in front of him, wearing the mask she had always worn to protect herself. Every time she couldn’t stand the overwhelming emotions around her. Cassian couldn’t help but find it majestic, how she stood her ground, watching him slowly crumble in himself.

The shock must have been evident on his face, he was sure about it. He felt like he couldn’t move. He wanted to tear his eyes from her icy stare but no matter how hard he tried, his body wouldn’t allow him to. All he was capable of doing was holding on to the balcony railing of his apartment.

In the corner of his eye he saw the lights of the city he called his home. There was a musician playing on the streets somewhere, he could hear the happy melody in the distance. Usually he would have loved it. It all seemed like a mockery to him now.

“But…I don’t understand! I thought we were happy!”

As the realisation started to settle in he could feel the panic rising up. The ringing in his ears became louder and louder and he had to resist the urge to shut them with his hands, even though he knew that it wouldn’t help one bit. Otherwise he would have missed her next words.

“Happy?! Do you really think I’m happy with everyone trying to change me the whole time?”

There was anger in her eyes now, a little spark that could turn into a wildfire if he didn’t take care. He had seen it a million times already. That fiery anger that threatened to eat her alive. It always resulted in her sending the flames towards her opponents, mixed with nothing but cold, brutal calculation.

“You know that it’s true Cassian. They all want me to be that cheerful little girl who loves to go on family adventures and gets along with everybody and keeps quiet about all the things that go wrong with you all. But I’m not. I hate pretending that I like them. And I most certainly hate that they only see Feyre’s sister or your girlfriend in me. Especially Rhysand!”

“He doesn’t do that and you know it! All he is trying to do is to integrate you. And if you wouldn’t be so god damn stubborn about it you would see it!”

Something had switched in Cassian, he didn’t even realise it. All of a sudden the shock had turned into anger. He stepped towards her, fists clenched and eyes squinted.

She didn’t back down. Instead she stabbed her finger in his chest and bared her teeth, ready to fight back. “You’re only proving my point! You’re doing it again! Defending him! It’s always like this, you’re always on his side!”

“Can you blame me? He is the only family I have left! I owe him so much, hell we wouldn’t even live in this apartment without him!”

“Should I be thankful for this now? It’s only a reminder that we are completely dependent on him. All I did over the past years was trying to match his expectations. I really tried, for you! But I can’t do this anymore! I don’t even know who I am anymore!”

“So the only solution for you is to break up with me? Throwing me away when I’m not of use for you any longer?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Cassian.” She turned around and stormed into their shared bedroom, Cassian right on her heels. When he saw all of her stuff packed up in some suitcases the panic returned. He could feel his heart beating rapidly and he had to hold onto the door frame as he slightly stumbled at the sight.

“Where…where are you going?”

“Eris offered me to stay in his family’s summer house. He’ll pick me up in a thew minutes and you won’t follow me!”

She had planned this then. Had made her decision, when exactly? Days ago? Weeks ago? Leaving him, without even giving him the chance to explain himself or making things right with her. He would change if he needed to. All she had to do was talk to him, telling him what he could do better. Yet all of it wouldn’t lead to anything, because she had given up a long time ago.

What hurt the most though was the fact that she trusted another man more than she trusted him. Of course Eris would have offered to help her. That viper had tried to lure her in even before she had chosen Cassian. But why did she ran into his arms when Cassian was right here, willing to catch her like he had done so many times before?

When Nesta reached the door again, he stepped in front of her. He needed an answer. He needed to know if there was even the smallest chance of winning, should he fight for her.

„Tell me Nes, I won’t let you go otherwise. I want you to look me in the eyes and tell me that you don’t love me anymore.“

One last time she looked up to him with those beautiful steel blue eyes. He desperately searched for any sign of emotion in them. Hell, he would even take all of her anger again. At least this would mean that she still cared about him. But it seemed like she didn’t feel anything anymore as she made his nightmare come true.

„I don’t love you anymore. Goodbye Cassian.“

There it was, that final crash. He had hit the ground now, forced to watch her pass him and leave the apartment, not able to reach out for her, even though an inner voice screamed for him to hold her back.

It felt like an out of body experience. He could feel everything. The tears that ran down his cheeks. His knees giving in, causing him to sink to the ground against the wall. He could hear his sobs and pleas for her to come back. Yet everything was distant, covered under a blanket of devastating pain.

He didn’t know how much time had passed, when he finally came back to his senses. All he knew was that he had to stop her.

He got up on his wobbly legs and hustled out of the door on the floor of the apartment building screaming with everything his shaky voice could offer: „Nesta! NESTA!“.

But it was to late. She was gone. She had left him, like everyone else had done. He was all alone again.

When the old lady, who lived next door stepped out of her apartment at his screaming he gathered all his strength and made his way back into his own flat.

Entering the living room he saw a small black velvet box lying on the bookshelf. She hadn’t found it like he had planned. She hadn’t looked for it.

He could hear the box giggle at his misery, mocking him. He knew it was all in his head but he couldn’t stand it anyway. So, as the anger boiled up in him again, he grabbed the box, stepped out on the balcony - and with a yell he threw it into the river down below.

Tags: @hellodarling1357

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[andreal831]

Esther "Mikaelson" and Misogyny

The misogyny in TVDU, in both the writing and the fandom, is exhausting. It comes out so much, especially when it comes to complex women versus complex men. Esther (yes, I know her last name is not Mikaelson), is not one of my favorite characters, she's not even a character I particularly like. But to act like she is an absolute villain with no redeeming qualities is a best misogynist, and at worst blaming a victim of abuse.

Most of the hate for Esther tends to come from certain character stans because they don't like how Esther treated their favorite character or want to shift the responsibility of their favs to Esther so that they don't have to deal with a complex, morally grey character.

Esther is a survivor many times over and we cannot talk about her without first acknowledging that. When she was just a teenager/young adult, her entire family was slaughtered and she and her sister were kidnapped. I know there is a lot of debate in the psychology community regarding Stockholm syndrome, but her falling for Mikael screams a manipulated, traumatized, naïve, young woman.

Esther and Mikael

Whether it was Mikael's intent initially or not, he took advantage of the mental place she was at when they met. People recently have wanted to argue whether or not Esther was abused, but this is not a debate. First, there are many different types of abuse, mental, physical, emotional, financial, etc.

During this time period, while Norse communities tended to give woman more power, Esther was from "outside" their community. Her rank in the community would come directly from her marriage. I personally don't know if she went into her relationship with Mikael in order to gain security or if she was just truly that naïve and wanted love and a family. There is nothing wrong with either. It reminds me of why Hayley decided to try and actually have a relationship with Jackson. Woman have historically had to make hard decisions in order to gain protection. And even if she just wanted to get married and have kids, that is fine. Esther reminds me of Meg March. Her dreams may have been different than Dahlia but that doesn't make them less important.

We see very little of their human lives and it is told from everyone else's perspective except for Esther. We also know that everyone's stories are not accurate. Klaus lied about Esther's death for a thousand years. He also has a tendency from not seeing things through other perspectives. Klaus, and even Elijah, when they talk about their human lives, focus on Mikael's abuse on Klaus because the show centers around Klaus and doing everything they can do to redeem him. There is no benefit to making Esther look complex or going into how living with Mikael impacted her. But it is naïve to say she didn't suffer abuse. She lived in a household with a violent, angry man. Even if he didn't physically hit her, which we honestly don't know but I would find that extremely hard to believe, it is clear he verbally, emotionally, and financially abused her.

People love to say she is a powerful witch and could have stopped him or left, but this is shifting the blame from the abuser to the victim. First, abuse isn't about who is stronger. This logic is completely dismissing so much abuse that happens, especially women abusing men. Yes, Esther is a powerful witch, but if she had no other options outside of Mikael, being powerful doesn't matter. We know she would put Mikael to sleep for long periods to protect her and her children. We don't know if she did anything else, but we have at least one example of her using her magic to intervene. We also know she stopped practicing for a long time because of her fear of dark magic and how the community treated Dahlia.

We also have to acknowledge that Esther had very few choices. Sure, she could kill Mikael but she would have gotten sentenced to death for that. Again, her position in the community came from her connection to Mikael, otherwise she was just another enslaved person from a village they raided. We know how Dahlia was treated. Maybe she could have run off with Ansel and they would have protected her from Mikael, or if he was dead, the villagers, but this is putting her, her children, and the pack in a dangerous situation. Potentially starting a war between the pack and the village for aiding and abetting a kin-slayer. She would also be acknowledging her affair and adultery by woman was met by serious punishments, usually death. After committing matricide, she also wouldn't have claims to Mikael's money or land as an outsider. Maybe in the "new world," but she would have to hide her involvement in his death. Esther would have no money or land of her own as her familial land and money would have been claimed when it was raided.

While women in Norse communities did experience more freedom than other areas of the world at that time, they were still far from free. This is especially true considering how Esther came to this community. While she wasn't enslaved in a way Dahlia was, it is wrong to say she wasn't still enslaved. Her entire village was killed and her and her sister were forced to come to their village and live amongst them as hostages. Esther was kept as a way to keep Dahlia in line. She was not welcomed into the community. This was a common practice during these raids.

The reason I get so angry when people attack Esther as if she wasn't a victim is because real-life victims hear this everyday. Esther's situation perfectly exemplifies the "non-perfect" victim and the fandom perfectly exemplifies how many of these victims are treated.

Esther and Dahlia

Dahlia gets way more slack than Esther because she is a "more perfect victim." But again, we are getting the story from everyone's perspective but Esther. Yes, what Dahlia went through was horrible, but what she put her sister through was also horrible. Those two things are not mutually exclusive.

Dahlia had no right to expect Esther to give up her dreams for her, even though she did sacrifice a lot for Esther. She made that decision and took it on. Yes, it was noble, but again, she cannot expect anything for a choice she made. It is just like Klaus expecting his siblings to never leave him and punishing them when they do. Siblings do not owe each other their lives. I would also not blame Dahlia for leaving Esther behind to protect herself.

On top of that, when Esther went to Dahlia and asked for help, she took advantage of the situation and stole her child. I don't care what Esther promised or how much she understood of the situation, clearly at the moment Dahlia came for Freya, Esther did not want to give her up. If we look at it in a modern perspective, a mother who puts her child up for adoption has the right to change their mind because, morally, we understand it is impossible to understand how you will feel until that moment. If a person than steals the child after the mom changes their mind, that's kidnapping. If we look at it from a historical perspective, Norse communities were patriarchal and the children belonged to Mikael. Meaning Esther did not have the ability to "sell" her children.

Dahlia is given a lot of sympathy in the fandom because they relate her story to Klaus, who they spend a lot of time victimizing. So it makes an easy leap to paint Dahlia as the victim and Esther as the "evil" one. But again, we never see how Esther reacted to her sister casting her aside because she wanted love and a family. or how Mikael treated her throughout their relationship. Even if Dahlia ended up being right about Mikael, whether he was always evil or turned evil losing Freya, Dahlia doesn't get to make that decision for Esther. It is hard to watch someone you love get into an abusive relationship, but you can't tell someone what to do with their life. All you can do is try and be there for them when they need help.

Esther and Klaus

Another reason people hate on Esther is because of her relationship with Klaus. I personally think Esther loved Klaus the most because of who his father was. She babies him in a way she never did with the other's. We even see Finn resenting her treatment of Klaus because of it.

Yes, she does give him the necklace which ends up making Mikael target him to "make him strong." But, one, let's blame the abuser and not shift blame to a fellow victim. And two, what would you have her do? Sure the answer is probably, don't have an affair, but then your fav character wouldn't be there. Also, again, she was young and naïve. She also gets more blame for having an affair than Mikael does for beating a child. She made a mistake and did everything she could to protect Klaus from that mistake. Was it misguided, maybe, but her intention was good. She wanted to protect Klaus from Mikael finding out.

The fact that Esther can forgive Klaus for brutally murdering her shows how much she loved him. Her wanting to kill her kids later is honestly understandable. She never knew the side affects of the spell she performed. She watched her children become the worst versions of themselves for a thousand years and felt the guilt for every life they took. She also knew peace existed since she had been on the other side. When she first tried to take their lives, they would have all just gone to the other side. She didn't want them to suffer but wanted the pain they inflicted on the world to end.

The Misogyny of it all

The reason I say it is misogyny, is because every favorite character in this show has done absolutely terrible things. Klaus, and all of the Mikaelsons, are serial killers. It doesn't matter what reasons they had for doing it. Esther had her own reasons for her actions. The fact that people can't acknowledge Esther as a complex character but can do so for Klaus, Damon, Elijah, Stefan, etc. shows that it is based on misogyny. Even the fact that Dahlia, someone who kidnapped and abused a child, gets more love than Esther because Esther isn't a "perfect victim" shows it is rooted in misogyny. Men are allowed to be messy and complex but when it's a woman they are either a victim or pure evil.

I'm not saying there aren't things you can't hate her for. I hated her treatment of Elijah in Season 2 of TO and her plan to harm Hope. But to ignore the complexity of the character and pretend she wasn't a victim is just harmful rhetoric. Women are allowed to be complex and morally grey.

[buckybarnesss]

Even the framing of that shot fucking kills me: the nogitsune confidently staring at Chris, almost amused, and then Derek comes into frame and he's visibly frightened

And he's not looking at Stiles. He's scared of what Chris is going to do TO Stiles. This is really his biggest fear, what he's been worried about this entire time. And what can he do??

the whole thing is just a masterful stroke on the nogitstune's part. it's torturing everyone in that scene including stiles.

like, of course it's obvious how these events hurt the sheriff. that's his child being tortured by an ancient creature and forced to do terrible, terrible things and also who is clearly becoming more like a walking corpse every minute. it used claudia's illness against both him and stiles to make them lose hope. how he maintained any composure i don't know. i'd be a fucking wreck of a human seeing my loved one worn like an ill fitting suit to prom.

for chris? this is a guy who we've seen intimidate teenagers for no real reason other than because he can. he's held scott at gunpoint for daring to be with allison and nothing else but he hesitates here. he hesitates despite hedging with derek earlier about what he would do.

this moment such an inverse to season 1 going all the way back to that confrontation in code breaker between chris and stiles.

i can guarantee chris was recalling it.

argent: let me ask you a question, stiles... have you ever seen a rabid dog? stiles: no. i could put it on my to-do list, if you just let me go. argent: well, i have. and the only thing i've ever been able to compare it to is seeing a friend of mine turn on a full moon. do you wanna know what happened? stiles: not really... no offense to your storytelling skills... argent: he tried to kill me, and i was forced to put a bullet in his head. the whole while that he lay there dying, he was still trying to claw his way toward me, still trying to kill me, like it was the most important thing he could do with his last breath. can you imagine that?

and allison? allison's already made the horrible decision of harming boyd and erica that started the dominos that led to erica and boyd being taken by the alphas and erica being killed.

now she's confronted with this monster wearing her friend's face toying with their emotions. she tries to subdue it but all that does is piss the nogitsune off and annoy him.

she's been manipulated by both kate and gerard to see her friends as being enemies when they weren't only to be faced with the reality of it here.

allison wants to save her friends so badly to make up for her mistakes but with this she might not be able to.

derek's position is just heartbreaking. this is really his greatest fear and failures playing out again.

we don't often see derek express fear. he usually expresses anger rather than let anyone know he's afraid but here? here derek is afraid.

3A set up that derek and stiles had become friends, that stiles had been working with him over the summer to look for eric and boyd, that derek trusted stiles so much it broke jennifer's magic over him ---

and the nogitsune brings itself to derek's loft for protection because it knows derek will do anything to protect stiles.

he's already lost so many people. he's had to mercy kill people he cared about before. again stiles is one of the few who know about paige, stiles witnessed what happened with boyd and peter and jackson. he knows all of this about derek which means the nogitsune does too.

i'm not really sure what kind of derek we would've seen if stiles had died due to the nogitsune.

of course the person often lost in the psychological warfare of the nogitune is stiles.

stiles had to watch all this. had to see his knowledge used against the people he cared about over and over. his hands and body used for terrible things. the nogitsune fed off that more than anything. stiles's fear and confusion and pain. stiles was dying.

it's why the nogitsune was the best villain lol

[yuri-is-online]

Same Anon here that dropped that mess of an angst post lol. Maybe I should find some name for myself if this becomes a regular thing.

There are a lot of valid points there. For as lightly as the story treats everything, wow this would be messed up irl. But I digress, I personally can see this potentially taking a much darker route. I don’t know if you’re comfortable talking about this so TW: Brief mention of suicide

I imagine Yuu to just bottle everything up for the aforementioned reasons of being seen as weak for expressing any of their emotions only for it to all come out in one big mental breakdown. I think it would be quite poetic for Yuu’s breakdown to be more of a quiet self-destructive thing just to contrast the showy, outwardly destructive nature of the overblots. I always thought it could be some spur of the moment decision to just end it all out of sheer hopelessness and a thoroughly crushed sense of self-worth. I just can’t see a teenager handling a burden this heavy very well. Whether or not Yuu survives could be up to how dark you want to go.

Also if it isn’t too much, I would like to see that post about the boys’ individual reactions to Yuu running away sometime. But I’m aware you only write for a few at a time so…

previous post

You are more than welcome to give yourself a name! I don't have any named annons so you are free to choose anything you like, and make regular appearances if that is what you wish. While I try to only write for a few characters at a time, I don't mind doing a bullet point type post with my thoughts on the boys reacting to Yuu running away sometime, but I need to think as part of me wants to write something sappy and romantic, while the other part wants to focus more on Yuu and their character. I could do both I suppose (￣ω￣;)

I'm fine with talking about suicide, but since it's a sensitive subject I am going to place my thoughts under read more and tag it so if it is something you, dear reader, are triggered by you needn't see more than you are comfortable with.

notes: they/them used for Yuu, discussions of suicide and depression, isolation, abandonment, and missing persons. This also kind of takes a trip into theory town I am so sorry annon. Please do not interact with the words below if you do not wish to think on such things.

I want to start out by saying that when a person is depressed it is not always obvious, even if they are contemplating suicide. We don't have a complete understanding of what drives someone to kill themselves because we can't ask people who have. I do think there is an element of assuming that either the world or you will be better off if you are dead; which I would like to stress simply is not true, but you are not evil for struggling with that feeling even if people try to make you feel like you are.

Yuu's breakdown being "more of a quiet self-destructive thing," as you stated dear friend, would be extremely poetic. To me it highlights the disparity between Yuu and the overblot boys. They have power and are able to hurt others to try and make themselves feel better, Yuu has next to none and is only able to hurt themselves.

Crowley mentions that there is counseling available to all NRC students, assuming the school follows real life laws we can assume the Professors are mandatory reporters. If Yuu shows signs of depression or self-harm, they will be required to report that and recommend Yuu for counseling, but the thing about therapy is that it's not a one size fits all solution. The patient needs to accept that they have a problem and, perhaps more importantly, trust their therapist otherwise you won't benefit from the treatment.

That's assuming that a counselor would even understand how to treat Yuu in the first place, there's a lot going on with their situation and while I could see a good therapist taking it very seriously, there's only so much they can do, which brings me to my sort of sticking point with this and why it took me so long to answer your ask.

Why in the hell is Yuu in Twisted Wonderland in the first place??? "Because they're Alice" ok sure but what does that like actually mean. I don't want to derail this into theory town but I keep thinking about the translated lines Crowley mutters to himself when calling Yuu a beast tamer that doesn't appear in the text box... something about how they look more like they are meant to be eaten by the beast than tame it.

There is a part of me that feels like Crowley wants Yuu to feel isolated and despondent about their chances of getting home, like he needs them to be accepting of their death and convinced it's the only way they will be useful. Something to do with Grim and that big Chimera at the beginning of the game, in the light novel there is someone telling Yuuya to take their hand but they can't move to take it, all they can do is stare up at the big monster and it's evil grin (if i remember correctly)

Anyway all of that to say I can see two sorts of scenarios leading to Yuu trying to harm themselves.

Route A: Summer

As was correctly pointed out in these tags on the original post, I think Summer would be the worst time for an actively depressed Yuu. If they have been seeing a counselor, they will likely not be available over the summer months, Crowley didn't take us on vacation with him the first time so there's no way he'll do it now, and everyone has their own families to get back to.

They only have Grim and the Ghosts. And while Yuu might love them, they technically belong here. Yuu does not. The lack of other friends bothering them means Yuu has time to think good and hard about where they are. And who they left behind.

I like to listen to Dateline while I work sometimes and one of the things that always gets to me is how little closure people feel when someone goes missing, even if they find out what happened to them. If Yuu is missing in their world and their family loves them... they just have next to no chance of ever finding that out. Ever.

If Yuu has a bad relationship with their family, or none at all, they probably start feeling like they are going insane. They have nothing worth going back to really, to the point that people would probably encourage them to see being in Twisted Wonderland as a good thing, a chance for a fresh start. But it has been anything but.

Summer would be a good time to run away, it's easier to be homeless in the Summer, plenty of places need part time help anyway, and Yuu can make a clean break from the school before anyone notices they're gone.

It's also a good time to decide you want to die. By the time your friends come back they will have already gotten used to life without you anyway.

.... i could see this making grim overblot tbh. He blames the school for taking Yuu from him and by the time everyone returns he is there. Waiting. The consequences of their actions given form.

A monument to all their sins.

Option B: Sacrifice

So back to theory tangent.

Grim and Yuu are one student. Crowley treats them as such, but what if he-

Or whoever the real final boss is

Need them to actually be one student.

So they approach Yuu, offer their sympathies. Tell them they know why Crowley cannot send Yuu home.

"Because you came here by dying, don't you remember? These events you have seen, all your misfortunes and troubles, they've all been like one big dream. What a terrible fate you've met... but no worries. I know how to set you free."

The strange masked man places his hand on your shoulder and guides you to the mirror. You see your reflection in it, for the first time you idly realize, hair spread out on the pavement with a halo of blood spatter about your sleeping head.

"You needn't be scared." the man's voice is calm, soothing even, so much so that you almost believe him when he says

"You've died once before, after all. You know exactly what it feels like, it will just be like going to sleep."

Sleep sounds good, even if you have just gotten done fighting to stay awake, so very good you nearly miss the creature's wicked grin spreading mockingly across the reflection of your peaceful face.

[b4itslipsaway]

I’ve been a shipper since I was a teenager and I’ve always hated how people are so mean to shippers. Shippers have this beautiful ability to see stories deeper because we have emotional intelligence and understand media literacy.

And I’m confused why people say that romance in plot is unrealistic because quite literally, romance happening is as normal as anything else, in real life. One thing human beings have in common is the feeling of love, that’s one of our main ways of connection in real life and to our favorite stories. And usually a lot of what’s written in television and film, is almost always driven by some type of love.

Like ‘This is Us” for example, that entire story is about love. We see the conflict of these characters, whether it be family dynamic, friendship dynamic, or romantic dynamics; these conflicts always get solved by communication which is a form of love. Communication is a vulnerability between two people who are working to make things better.

I bring this example up to say that romantic love in a story isn’t low brow, it’s actually very normal and yes it does drive the plot forward the same way different types of love do. Just like in real life, romantic love can be a really beautiful, healing, and necessary thing for two characters.

So long story short, it is possible for a show like “The Bear” to be critically acclaimed and have a romantic plot. Because for the people who haven’t noticed, a lot of Carmy’s decisions are directly/indirectly influenced by Sydney. Sydney is more important to him than I think people realize, and yes her character drives his story forward. She is healing him, the same way he is to her; which is then causing him to approach his friends and family in a healthier way, simply because they make an effort to understand each other. Their relationship is a trickle down effect of how the show is so beautiful, because they are quite literally changing each others day to day lives.

All that being said, it wouldn’t really be shocking, if he’s falling in love with her.. idk why that would be shocking to people or deemed unnecessary for the plot. It’s very clear that he can’t be without her, and even said he doesn’t wanna do anything without her. Maybe I’m delusional but their love is necessary for the plot. The plot we’ve seen so far isn’t made up, the writers wrote him that way.. wrote him to need her in his life, whether people like it or not. I think without her it would’ve taken him longer to advance in healing, and yes we can all heal alone but it’s also okay to held by another. Connection is a driving force in a story. And to me it’s really beautiful to see Carmy in a soft manner, like as a viewer I’m happy that his character has someone like Sydney.

idk I’ve always thought romantic love is actually very beautiful and necessary, especially if it’s written as well and nuanced as they do in The Bear.

(Idk if this makes sense y’all but it makes sense to me, the story makes sense with them)

[trg-deltarune-quotes]

All the Lightners are smart in their own way: Noelle and Berdly

Noelle is the smartest among the group by a long shot. While her emotional intelligence is a bit low, mostly because she's not all that open about her honest feelings which leads to her being a yes man half the time.

Or sugarcoating her feelings to not come off as rude to other people.

Even when doing either of those things would help out in not miscommunicating anything.

She makes up for it with her quick wits.

She’s so smart that she comes up with a solution that quickens the pace of one of the puzzles. 

So yeah, Noelle is the smartest out of all of them. Even Berdly admits it.

Speaking of the bluebird, he’s not as dumb as he paints himself as. Yes his emotional intelligence is the lowest among the group but he does get some stuff right.

His assessment on Noelle, while a bit rude, is not unfounded.

This is what happens at the very first mouse puzzle.

He even notices that she has romantic feelings.

But the problem lies with what he says next.

By itself it’s not so bad, in fact it's really sweet of him, but he’s not talking about Susie.

He’s talking about himself.

Berdly’s not that great at identifying why they have those feelings or whos those feelings are towards. 

He thinks Noelle is shy and reserved because she has stage fright and not because of the month they had to spell at the spelling bee.

And he thinks Susie has a crush on him because she was nice to him when he opened up to her and because she's TRUE gamer as well.

Granted he has his feelings of friendship confused for love.

This is mostly stemming from his low self-esteem.

Believing himself to be worthless unless he could prove himself.

And while he might not be as emotionally intelligent as Susie or as smart as Noelle he is a great organizer and planner.

When Berdly works with the team to save Noelle, he comes up with a plan that accounts for the strength of all the team members of the fun gang. 

Kris is unpredictable, you never know how or what they're gonna do, having them distract Queen makes sense. Susie is the muscle of the group able to dish out pain like it’s nothin so having her escort Noelle also makes sense. And finally Berdly’s memory of the palace makes him a reliable source for where to go.

That’s another thing about him; he has a really good memory.

He doesn’t just remember big words, he remembers the people who created his statue and gets their help to build the giant robot.

So yeah, Berdly is a smart kid as well.

The biggest question now is why do they do dumb stuff when the situation is less goofy and a bit more serious? The answer is simple. They are EXTREMELY poor communicators. Kris doesn't want to have a serious talk, Noelle is too afraid to speak her mind, Susie was quite a nasty bully before her adventure in the dark world, and Berdly jumps to conclusions a lot. And all these issues stem from their deep rooted insecurities so of course they’re gonna make dumb decisions. They don’t want to hurt their feelings, or act like they don’t care about them, hell they even might pretend they don’t care when they really really do just to protect not only themselves but those they care about. They’re just a bunch of teenagers trying to navigate the complex web that is relationships.

Communication is a really prevalent theme in this game. One in which I feel will get explored more in the light world rather than the dark world. Because what better place to talk about your issues than in your own world? Might not be as fun as a dark world adventure but that doesn’t mean they can’t create their own fun with friends. They can use the dark world as a foundation to forge stronger bonds and help each other out. After all, just because they dreamed of it doesn't mean they can’t learn from it.

It’s just like what Susie said at the end of the ferris wheel ride.

[catbountry]

It has been 22 years since 9/11; I was 15 years old in second period art class when a kid, who'd been running down the hallway, opened the door and announced a plane had hit the World Trade Center, and then ran off down the hall, leaving everyone confused. The principal advised teachers not to turn on televisions for us when this was happening, leaving us in further confusion as he tried, feebly, to carry out the rest of the day. We were dismissed before lunch, before fourth period ended.

There are people who are able to legally drink that weren't born yet when this happened and let me tell you, the actual event was fucked up but what happened afterwards, the decisions made in the wake of this fucking event, are a big reason why everything is so fucked up now.

I remember the color-coded terror threat chart, explained by Tom DeLay, who would become a minor internet meme just because of a weird photo of his face. I remember the phrase "known unknowns" in regards to justifying the invasion of Iraq. The "yellow cake" uranium. Being assured that there were weapons of mass destruction. Shock and awe. Bush in a flight suit in front of that "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED" sign. The 2000's was the decade of neo-conservatism and 9/11 was a glorious and golden opportunity to have what America had lost with the fall of the Soviet Union; an ideological enemy that hated us because of how great we were. A perfect vessel to pump patriotic sentiment into the public. And it worked... kind of. Not so much for us younger people, those of us who were teenagers or in our 20's. You have to understand that we were at a point where Jon Stewart, the host of the Daily Show, was considered to be some sort of beacon of truth. We would rather get our news from a satirical news program than the actual news, because Stewart would at least recognize the absurdity of it all. A lot of artists did. Green Day's American Idiot is considered to be their most important album and the whole thing was a protest album. I've always had a soft spot for Radiohead's Hail to the Thief for the same reason. Counterculture was dark and bitter and cynical and brooding, and often incredibly edgy, flying directly in the face of the propaganda about how great America was. Counterculture was more queer, more atheist, dressed in black and online, making memes about 9/11. 9/11, this day that was supposed to be symbolic of the nation's greatest modern-day tragedy since the assassination of John F. Kennedy or the bombing of Pearl Harbor, was being photoshopped to make it look like Hulk Hogan was taking down the Twin Towers through sick wrestling moves. 4chan seems to have since been infected with reactionary brainworms over the course of the 2010's, but in the 2000's, counterculture wasn't conservative. It was making conservatives upset. We saw destruction and mass human death played on repeat over and over and we grew numb to it. Desensitized. We saw the obvious emotional ploy that was being used as an excuse to inflict even more violence and oppression on people on the other side of the globe. We reveled in shock sites, in edgy jokes, in transgression, in scaring the normies.

The young men who fall into the alt-right rabbit hole, who might not even be old enough to remember 9/11... I can't help but wonder what they think of it. Because they still want to be edgelords, but now to own the libs. To work in service of the very same people that we were trying to piss off 20 years ago. Trump spoke on 9/11 about how now, the Trump Tower, which had once been the tallest building in Manhattan, was now back to being the tallest building in Manhattan. He's a completely different breed from Bush, Cheney and company. Completely self-interested. Not even bothering with the pretext of things like conviction or truth. Truthiness incarnate. Embrace it. Feel it. Be it.

I think back to a few years ago, I posted a doge meme with the child doge in front of the Twin Towers, with a joke about how great the future was going to be in the coming decade. I had a teenager try and educate me on how insensitive this was. They hadn't even been born yet and I snapped at them that the meme was a real sentiment, that all of us who were old enough to remember essentially watched our futures explode on television, over and over, in a fireball of jet fuel.

This went stream of consciousness again. It always does. It's hard to summarize 9/11 and its aftermath in a cohesive way because we're still living in the shadow of it. COVID-19 is now the big historical event that traumatized us all that we will have to reckon with for decades to come, and how it affected young people growing up at the time. The new scar on our collective psyche. But 9/11 will continue to be that formative scar. Before that for me, it was Columbine, but only because the aftermath did directly affect me. Before that? Princess Diana's death, the Oklahoma City bombing, and the O.J. Simpson trial, and of all of those, the bombing was perhaps the most actually impactful on us. Before 9/11, it was the largest terrorist attack on the United States, carried out by a far-right racist retaliating against the FBI firebombing a compound because a pedophile cult leader with a bunch of guns refused to give up and used his child brides as human shields. That'd be Waco, by the way.

There was another bombing of the World Trade Center that happened in 1993. It was much smaller, using a bomb inside a van in a parking lot underneath; it's the reason Biggie rapped about "blowing up like the World Trade." Osama bin Laden was also behind that one but that wouldn't be fully realized by us until 1996. It only killed six people. It was considered a failed attempt; it was supposed to take down the entire North Tower. It didn't come out of nowhere. The CIA knew that this was in motion since Clinton was in office, and this ball got rolling because of training the United States offered to resistance fighters in Afghanistan against the Soviets in the 80's. I remember the shock I felt first seeing that photo of Donald Rumsfeld shaking Saddam Hussein's hand, knowing about the Gulf War and living through the War in Iraq. All these puzzle pieces are scattered on the floor and my brain is making connections between all of them as I try and fit them together. I'm looping red string around push pins and asking who Pepe Silvia is, except it's not a conspiracy, it's just me trying to fully grasp this event that happened in my lifetime, before I was an adult but after I'd started paying attention to the news regularly and had developed an interest in politics. Just as I was forming my own political beliefs. 9/11 and its aftermath has informed so much of who I am politically, and what my values are. George W. Bush is my Nixon, and yet, somehow, things got so much more cartoonishly worse as I entered my 30's that I was in denial about it until COVID. Trump's presidency felt like a clown show. How on earth was I supposed to take this man seriously? This motherfucker made the neoconservatives appear restrained and reasonable by comparison, and those motherfuckers are actual war criminals.

I can only really tell people who are too young to remember what this era was like what it was like. It's hard to explain if you weren't there in that moment. We're seeing Y2K nostalgia become a thing, which fits, because of the 20 year minimum big nostalgia cycle, as those whose childhood was 20 years ago are now young adults. And some of those adults were born after 9/11. They never knew the world before it. I knew, but I was a child and couldn't really fully grasp it. The 90's felt very distinct from the 2000's, with it's very open cynicism and even nihilism in the very first years of a society with no Soviet Union.

If only we knew how bad things really would become.

[furiyama]

I have something to say to certain people in this fandom and I've had these thoughts and feelings for a while. I won't name names for the sake of what I'm about to say. It's important that I say it, and explain it, and tell you firstly

I am absolutely disgusted, on a soul level, on a heart level, by your beloved Snarry ship and I must call you out on what you are doing to Severus (and also to Harry, though Severus has been with me since I was read the first book at 4 years old. From that age on, I knew and felt he was more, he was onto something, so he is the main focus of this)

I don't know you are, and I can't quantify and analyze each one of your lives to understand why you like Severus, but I know within my soul, you do not understand the gravity of what he gave up for Lily, the amount of self will it took, the knowledge that even if he would never make things right with Lily, he must do the right thing (which we can debate on if he actually made this emotional decision but I have a following more important point)

I have dealt with the strength of love towards a friend after the world that birthed you shatters you soul with abuse, you have no one truly supporting you in this world, you don't know what geniune love looks or feels like, but yet, you meet somebody who makes your soul glimmer, like you are actually alive and not dead inside. I have been down many schools of thought about these types of love, having them for a handful of different people I met throughout my journey. On one hand there is geniune pyschological phenomanoms when it comes to loving and connections after abuse, that some of us develop unhealthy attachment styles, some of us encounter limerance (unwanted, obsessive love for somebody else you cannot get out of), all of these schools of thoughts are valid and in appropriate medical settings and pyschology study, are useful for helping us understands how humans work and potentially helping us guide us to a patch of healing.

But what I'm going to say is different , because I experienced different, thought different.

I had to validate that love I held for those people because it made me want to continue to exist - and so what if is excerbated or partially caused by my trauma and/or mental illness. It was the most real feeling I had ever felt, those feelings eventually lead me to this moment now, where I can finally stand up and tell you how disrespectful you are to Severus and his journey by shipping him with Harry. I trusted those feelings and they lead me to the healing I needed for many years.

Severus's journey mirrored my own, I was the child with a terrible temper, getting kicked out of schools early on in childhood, group homes. But why did me and him continue to exist in a world that made it clear it didn't want us?

I found that answer out as I grew into a teenager and experienced love for my friends and my limerance objects (the object of ones affection while under limerance effects), that I wanted to keep existing so I could do good for them.

I had no idea how to do that, at this point I shipped literal Armstrongcest from full metal alchimist, my entirely way of being, and thinking, was fucked up. I hurt people left and right even though the feelings I had - and for certain people I didn't realize until I used and hurt them so much, that they weren't my emotional priority, I liked the companionship, somebody who talked about things you knew and were interested in.

Severus made friends with terrible people because they were the only ones that really gave that to him. And nobody stepped in to teach him straight or differently, he only knew the world as it was for him. I'm not condoning being a wizard racist or anything, I simply understand when you are in that much pain, as my friend says often to me 'if you aren't given appropriate love you will learn to lick it off a knife'

Something in him for Lily always stirred, and unhealthy as it was for him to have that, I truly believe it was the only geniune relationship he ever had growing up. And knowing personally still grief after 8 years of the person my heart chose simply ghosting and refusing all contact, sometimes that pain, that longing, it never goes away. You remember it because it spoke to your soul at that time in your life in a way you have never encountered since.

I am absolutely... just, offended, that as somebody who has gone through this emotional journeys, who understands now the appropriate space that must be given to this person, it is beyond words of absolute recoiling of the soul to think that after all that happens, your person never returns to you

That you go and fuck their child

all the self work you've done on yourself to achieve a sense of self you now can find yourself be proud you climbed that mluntain for them

That you go and think their kid is an appropriate partner

Part of this is understanding you need to leave their circle alone (even if it was never involved their circle before), it is a level of respect you come to and understand for this person. that from afar, mayhaps now and again you can send a blessing or help in some way, but to want to change your behavior from what you did that hurt them to run (which is the level of emotional decision i want to write for severus but that's another topic)

you understand your behaviors and your way of connecting with people isn't good, and the first thing you can do to make it right within your soul is going and trying to exude the exact opposite energy

which means respectfully at the end leaving her kid the fuck alone

i could go on rants for many of the other severus ships but i don't care to. none of them are more annoying to a mosquito to me. but this one, stirs a specifc part of my soul that i need you to hear when i say

When you fucking ship him with harry, you are completely opposite of that energy, you don't want what's best for him, otherwise you'd know the grief and such goes through stages and you's eventually want him to learn how to respect his own emotions and experiences

to see you snarry shippers say dumb shit like i love his smile, i love a happy snape, i love him, i am disgusted beyond words

you don't actually fucking care at all if you want him to go down that dark ass road

i geniunely had to ask myself at a point of thinking about this, what if it was me, and i was the person who was diddling that persons child?

i said to my friend, if that ever happens, please just shoot me. end it. clearly something has gone wrong, very wrong, and it can't be fixed when you get to that level, it's all already fucked. my friend, understanding he said to me 'i definitely wouldnt want to but i hear you... it'd be painful but i know where you are coming from when you talk about severus and m(person). if it gets that bad, i know you don't want it to go on'

of course this is a hypothetical question so of course it won't happen but that parallel is the Foundation of the understanding. without my feelings for all those people that eventually coalesced into my now many year long grief over just 1 and has held steady, I wouldn't have this personal context to give you but it's important I give it to you

so you can understand now how the very ship is an anti-thesis to severus's soul and how dare you say you care about him while doing that shit

how fuckin ass dare you disrespect him and his journey like that

how dare you try to stand with him while pushing him back into a similiar kind of darkness he was born in!

fuck you and fuck your snarry.

respect severus, don't you ass fucking dare act like you understand what it's living it because you clearly fucking don't if you can't give him the basic respect of not pushing him backwards

i hope y'all learn how to swim because i'm the goddamn severus snape goddess and your ship is creepier than flying dutchman, like he's not gonna even be willing to raise your sunken ship, that's how bad it is

[self-winding]

One of my YA novels which I've been trying forever (unsuccessfully) to sell involves a teenage girl whose parents (and especially her father) are political extremists. Her dad is an eccentric brand of right-winger who has some neo-reactionary leanings, negative views on democracy and modernity in general, and also (most relevant to the narrative) some racist views, and he hosts a group of similarly-minded people who meet in his home.

The main character is very opposed to her parents politically and has, for years, defined herself almost exclusively in terms of her opposition to their views, and also harbors a lot of anger toward them to a point that it's destructive to her mental health. She struggles with guilt and confusion over the mixture of love and hate she feels for her dad, she self-harms in an attempt to deal with it, etc. There is a point in the narrative where some bullies at school discover this particular weakness of hers and use it against her.

This emotional conflict is not the entirety of the story, there's a lot of other stuff going on, but it is crucial to her character arch.

By the end of the novel, she has...not forgiven her parents, and is still just as opposed to their beliefs, but she's also realized that her own feelings of anger and guilt are poisoning her. She's learned to let go and start to form her own identity in a way that's separate from her opposition to their views, and in her case this involves physically moving to a different town and also a mental shift away from being immersed in political frameworks.

I've generally gotten a lot of responses praising the writing itself but saying "there is no way in hell this would sell in today's market," and pretty much every specific response I've gotten as to why it would be impossible to sell is centered around the perceived centrist-liberal politics of the book and the fear that the MC's emotional arch and her decision to focus on her own mental health (as opposed to becoming even more progressive by the end and dedicating her life to fighting her parents' views) could come across as condoning or downplaying the badness of her parents views and making them seem too "sympathetic." I've done several rounds of edits in an attempt to address these concerns or clarify that that is not, in fact, what I'm doing, but I've accepted that there's probably no edit I could make that would make this book sellable. It's going to figuratively sit in my drawer forever.

Which is deeply frustrating to me because (in my admittedly biased opinion as the story's writer) I think this speaks to something relevant that I almost never see addressed in YA fiction. Or really in any modern fiction.

[vampiremeerkat]

not sure if you've caught up much to Vivziepop's work lately, but got any thoughts regarding her Helluva Boss show, or her upcoming Amazon Prime version of Hazbin Hotel?

Said this: https://vampiremeerkat.tumblr.com/post/188696192708/hazbin-hotel-came-out-thoughts-aye-watched-it https://vampiremeerkat.tumblr.com/post/665027239768899584/since-youve-seen-hazbin-hotel-what-do-you

But I've still not watched Helluva Boss, only about two or three few second snippets out of curiosity for the animation quality. My knowledge on it is based on a review from Just Stop, and if the show is like he describes, I won't be turning on episode 1 soon. It appears to me like Helluva Boss just does things to look or sound exciting in the moment, without caring about previously established rules or how stupid these decisions make a character look in the face of past or upcoming episodes. Then again, my mind has been poisoned by anime, and I like Cars, so I can also imagine none of it would keep me up at night. But even before Just Stop's video, I've not felt particularly interested. If I had to give a reason, perhaps I just don't enjoy Vivziepop's interpretation of Hell enough to want to know about its residents. Just Stop gives a sensible list of reasons what's wrong with her Hell, but like I said in one of the linked messages above: I find many of the characters too approachable/aesthetically pleasing and already don't think that's what Hell should be like. I want disfigured gremlins no one wants to draw porn of. Hell should be Hell, not a (slightly) less bearable version of some big city you can find on Earth. A good example of Vivziepop's work is the character "Beelzebub". I happened to come across an image of her not long ago, which is a fluffy neon-rainbow fox with insect wings, instead of an actual bee with beastly features, which would've made more sense. Why is someone who's called "(queen) bee" a fox? We know why, and I cry for all the sexy bees in the world. You don't always have to cater to the furries, my friends, please, just try something else for once, leave the canines, felines, and dragons alone! There are so many different kinds of animals walking the planet to sexualize! And you.. furries.. You're all conveniently inhabited by the soul of a wolf -an animal that so happens to appeal to most humans in terms of appearance- while there's infinite times more sea life and insects that existed throughout time and in present day, that died and could've reincarnated into what is now you! That's right loser, you are a literal worm! Anyway, the characters draw the attention of teenagers, but at the same time, the show mishandles the use of swear words and throws them around like it's all good, which I also can't stand. I think the latter is what initially turned me off from sitting on stand-by for the upcoming Hazbin Hotel show, because why should I care about anything you have to say if you're always going "fuck" and "shit" in my face? A sliver of positivity in this rant: I think the owl looks cool. Again, he does not look like anything Hell would produce, I'd design something like him if my intention was a "mysterious, forest fairy tale creature", but still cool. I contemplated looking up his scenes under the belief there's a complicated, emotional story attached, but if you're telling me they did this hooty boy wrong by making him a sexually dissatisfied whore, with Blitzo's only aim being his magic book, and yet further episodes proclaim there's an actual connection between the two without the writers having put in the work, then never mind. I'll find myself a different hooty boy. 💔🦉

[trojanteapot]

Alrighty folks buckle up because I'm gonna rant

Just feel like some of you out here just don't really understand nuance? And it's like what was I expecting because it's social media nuance is dead.

Anyway so all three of you out there who follow me that aren't bots, or people that I know IRL, know that my favourite character in Infinity Train is Simon Laurent, the French incel bastard man. And yeah I know he's terrible but also I must ask the eternal question: Is he actually though??????

Hear me out. Because look I know dude is a murderer and a hypocrite and a whiny little bitch but also consider the facts:

he's a teenager

he got trapped on some nightmare train when he was only ten. TEN!

his denizen was THE CAT, who from his POV manipulated him and then abandoned him!

Now I know what some of you already saying at this point:

-"uh that doesn't justify all the murdering!!!" -"he's an egotistical jackass!" -"he's not a child he's 18! he would go to adult jail in real life!" -"he died in the narrative thus justifying my hatred!" Okay well consider this: it's pretty much canonical that Grace did exactly the same amount of murdering as Simon but y'all are so ready to embrace and forgive her because she had a change of heart?

And which one of you when you were 18 made completely rational not emotion-driven decisions based on pure facts and logic??? Which one of you are capable of doing this now????

And he didn't have a normal childhood to develop his brain in a normal way, again he boarded the Train at age ten!!!! And finally which one of you was a teenager who wasn't a little egotistical???

If Simon was egotistical then what does that make Grace, the leader of the Apex who made a throne for herself???? What does that make Amelia who rejected the Train's attempts to help her move on and instead tried to recreate her dead fiance to the point that there are just renegade failed clones of that person just running around????

Also, I feel like it's important to mention that Amelia probably did more crimes than both Grace and Simon combined but she just didn't get her face eaten by Ghoms just because she was an adult at the time and could outsmart the Train. You guys are willing to forgive her and all the stuff she did... as an ADULT, but not Simon, a teenager, because... reasons???!!!

And other stuff I feel like should be mentioned here:

I think it's important to consider why episode 4 of season 3, came right before episode 5, you know the one where he kills Tuba. Episode 4 was when we learn a ton of info about Simon. Notably that the Cat was his denizen and we all know how the Cat is!

I'm pretty sure we were supposed to draw several conclusions from that episode namely:

- Cat is a schemey little shit - he was a kid when he knew the Cat - he seems to claim she was fake and manipulating him - that seems believable from what we know of the cat - ep 5 hits, Tuba and Simon have heart to heart - Simon then kills Tuba

So why did Simon kill Tuba? IT'S BECAUSE SIMON THINKS TUBA IS MANIPULATING HIM LIKE THE CAT WAS

And my friend brought up a good point where if you think about it, the Train was using Tuba to manipulate him, and using Hazel to manipulate Grace.

The Train we've seen just runs on pure algorithms and doesn't give a shit about the passengers. The Train just sees them as a number that increases or decreases. It just calculated that if Hazel & Tuba met Grace & Simon then it would have the maximum likelihood that those denizen + passenger combos could get their numbers down the most efficiently. It of course did not account for the fact that the Cat went on vacation and then ran into Simon, thus reminding him to not trust denizens.

Simon had as much of a likelihood to do a change of heart like Grace did! But hey, spanner in the works and all that.

Some of you just like hating on him because he's a white guy and coded cishet and it really shows.

I'm sure y'all are gonna say I'm defending the patriarchy or whatever for defending cishet white guy colonizer man Simon Laurent as a queer femme POC but also fuck off with that bullshit and just look at the actual text of the narrative presented to us instead of reading bad takes on Twitter.

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

[buckybarnesss]

("of course he was hesitant to break up with her again because the last time he saw her before she got amnesia she stormed into his work place, kicked his desk into a wall, yelled that he betrayed her not allowing him to explain and they had fought multiple times before that. the relationship was toxic and he was very clearly scared of her reaction and that she would lash out at him")

good to know that you think that korra is an abuser who has power over mako in the relationship and mako is the victim who is afraid of her.

ah. i knew i was going to get an anon like this when i made that post. this fandom is so fucking predicable.

i never called korra an abuser in did i? no. you came into my inbox accusing me of using words i didn't say but since you wanna get into this discussion.

season 2 korra is the worst version of her. she is down right insufferable at times. she's hot headed, impatient and tempestuous with seemingly little emotional regulation. her behavior towards nearly everyone is immature.

this is a direct result of korra's insular upbringing which is she is not at fault for and is part of the reason she's so incredibly angry in season 2. she is totally justified in her anger over it, actually. it left her not just ignorant of the world to a large degree but underprepared for the more social aspects of being the avatar. truly the white lotus fucked up.

while korra's anger and frustrations are understandable and even relatable it does not make it okay for her to take them out on mako.

it's so odd because people will hate korra for these very things but offer her grace in how she treats mako. yet mako is rarely afforded any grace at all by the same people. in fandom i often see all the blame placed entirely on mako's shoulders. either you think korra is an equal partner in the relationship or you don't.

they're both maladjusted teenagers and it's their first real serious romantic relationship. they're both stubborn and their tempers flare. korra repeatedly seeks advice from mako and dismisses whatever he says. he tries to be protective when that's definitely a misstep as it comes across as paternalistic to korra when for mako it's a way he shows his care and love for someone.

that said, understanding why korra behaves the way she does it still doesn't make it okay how she treats her boyfriend.

it is unacceptable that she stormed into his place of work, yelled at him in front of his coworkers and kicks his desk into a wall. she is in the wrong for this.

i promise it's okay to call korra out on her bad behavior.

does it make her abusive? in the moment? yes.

look, this is a cartoon. a more mature one for sure and still imparts valuable lessons but like i don't think korra has a pattern of long term abusive behavior and she does learn and grow from this. both her and mako move beyond this, forgive each other for their bullshit and become good friends. it's fandom that continues to hold a grudge against mako.

korra's mistreatment of mako is also side by side in this particular season with the blatantly abusive relationship bolin is trapped in with eska and the comment lin made that implies she fucked up air temple island after she and tenzin broke up.

the eska/bolin relationship and lin's comment are played for laughs and mako in later seasons is made fun of for his ineptitude in his relationships with asami and korra.

all of these decisions were made by the writers and they are fucked for that in my opinion.

the incident at the police station makes mako uncomfortable in their next encounter when he discovers she doesn't even remember they broke up. mind you when he does meet korra again there's a very deliberate moment of her firebending at a dummy whose straw head lands at his feet.

mako's reaction is understandable. he doesn't want to embarrass korra in front of everyone and he's concerned about her reaction to the news they broke up considering her behavior towards him previously. he is somewhat scared of korra here. i think we can acknowledge that.

he knew he fucked up though and he does apologize for it.

now to address the other thing.

korra has more social power than mako. she is the avatar and the daughter of a southern water tribe chieftain. she has all the advantage and privilege over him.

in fact, the entirety of season 2 is mako essentially having less social capital and privilege than those around him and it lands his ass in jail after being framed for the cultural center bombing because he stepped on the wrong toes

make no mistake korra, varrick, asami and lin have more social capital and power over mako than he does over them.

i guess we're not supposed to acknowledge that though.

[wellspokenrambler]

Rambler @ PAX East 2024

Hi folks! I just got back from PAX East over the weekend and, while I didn't really take part in the Expo Hall besides a couple of stalls, I did go to a decent number of panels - and thought it was worth writing up my thoughts on each of them. The only thing I love more than playing video games is hearing people talk about video games!

(I didn't take notes while I was there so this will be certainly more of a "vibes"-based assessment and why each one appealed to me personally, so apologies if you came here looking for a more objective description of each panel! I'll put links to the VOD of each panel where available)

Panels and thoughts below the read-more (it's long as heck! get ready):

Metroid: A Community Retrospective and Look Toward the Future

Having only played Metroid Prime 3: Corruption and Metroid: Dread in my time, I wouldn't call myself a hardcore fan - but they are both games I've really enjoyed, and Samus Aran's pivotal positioning as a female character in video gaming history is always fascinating to me, so I had to check this one out.

It's so surreal to see the ways that a community like this had to adapt to long "dry spells" without any official new material for their fandom, and the joy that follows when something like Dread comes along to reaffirm their love for it. I don't know that I learned anything new from this panel myself, but it was still heartening to hear the panellists' clear passion for the games, and it does make me want to dip my toes into other Metroids (at the very least, the other two Prime games!)

Unlocking the Positive Potential of Gaming for Kids and Teens

I hadn't originally planned to go to this one, but met two of the panellists (Dr. David Bickham and Sam Schamm, MA) while eating brunch by the food trucks, and hearing them briefly discuss the subject matter fascinated me enough that I decided to pop along to it.

This was a deeply insightful panel on the ways that gaming can meaningfully help young people and foster their learning, agency, critical thinking, and other useful life skills - as well as thoughts on how to help them through the risks associated with gaming such as toxic multiplayer communities or, for want of a better word, the addictive potential of gaming. Having previously worked in a job which involved helping teenagers make informed decisions about their futures myself, it meant a lot to me to see serious academic thought being given to the subject given how prevalent gaming is as part of a child's social life these days. Excellent panel!

Mental Health and Gaming - Creating a Safe Space for Yourself and Others

While a difficult topic, I am nevertheless glad that I went to this panel as it covered the way that streamers and other "community figures" can navigate the creation of a safe space in the form of their community while also maintaining effective boundaries within that space. Of particular interest to me was reframing some of the language that often gets used in this context e.g. "trauma-dumping" and unpacking our own biases when dealing with uncomfortable situations.

If I had any minor criticisms of the panel, it would be that some of the suggestions occasionally felt like they veered a little too far into the side of... I guess trying to fix the lives of strangers? Now, in the interests of fairness I shall state my own biases that lead to this feeling, because it is not that I do not care about what happens to people: it is precisely because I've had to manage my own proclivity towards hyper-empathy in the past that I tend to take a step back from my emotions on that regard these days. Caring is good, but caring to the point of self-destruction helps no-one, and that to me feeds into what the panel was saying about boundary maintenance.

My own community is a small handful of regulars and a couple of hundred followers so this has not been something I need to worry about yet, but the panel has hopefully given me some tools with which to manage those situations if they ever arise, and for that I am thankful.

How Our Favorite Characters Have Real World Impacts on Us: A Look into Fictional Characters and ParaSocial Relationships

FASCINATING panel. I originally went to this because of my memories of being in the Gorillaz fandom and the weird and wonderful (and sometimes ugly) ways people interacted with the idea of the fictional band members in that space... But the conversation proved to cover a broad spectrum both of what constitutes a parasocial relationship AND what constitutes a fictional character; the panellists made the case that the personas of content creators and streamers themselves counted as fictional characters, and I think they are absolutely bang-on with that.

From my end as a Z-list Player of Games Online, even I am presenting a more polished version of myself there than I would have in the rest of my life - it's not "not me", but it's certainly not all of me, and that is enough to make "Well-Spoken Rambler" a somewhat distinct entity from the person who portrays them.

The inclusion of internet personalities into their definition ALSO meant, however, that at the Q&A I got to name-drop one of my favourite journal articles that I've read this year: The one-and-a-half sided parasocial relationship: The curious case of live streaming. This article holds deeply interesting connotations to me because of what it implies about the "half" of the one-and-a-half... which is that of course, behind the fiction of a "creator" is the person who creates, and that person is just as capable of developing fictionalised ideas of the people in their community (though with a more removed and likely self-aware perspective on it). The panellists had heard of the article and mentioned it was on their to-read list, but agreed it tied in well with the themes of the panel!

(... And yet the reason I was able to re-find the article so quickly is because I had linked it to a creator in a Patreon Direct Message a couple months ago because I thought it would be interesting to them... The irony is not lost on me. More on that later.)

Debate Club with Mari and PeeGTV

This was just a fun old time! I wasn't familiar with Mari or PG before watching this panel, but they have such a fun rapport here that I want to try and watch them more regularly now that I know of them. Jenna Stoeber acted as a firm but fair adjudicator of the panel - and I am definitely not just saying that because she is a recent convert to the Rambler channel and was pleasant and kind when we bumped into each other on the expo floor. She did a great job letting both sides of the debate (Millennial horror vs Gen Z horror) shine. If you listen closely around the 34 minute mark, you may hear a familiar little British voice raise a point about how you can't judge a horror by its synopsis!

Thinking Differently Together: Neurodivergence & Gaming

Folks... I am so so glad that there is a much greater emphasis on self-advocacy these days than there used to be. Look! Look at all those ND creators talking about their experiences and being listened to!! Look how it has a VOD so I can just link it and you can all see it too!!! Conversations like this one in a major event like PAX are a hopeful sign to me that progress is being fought for and won.

Only minor critiques for this one are:

could have used some discussion about more than just the usual ADHD/autism bracket that is discussed when it comes to neurodiversity (but then I think that about most ND discussions)

would personally have liked some chat about accessibility concerns while creating/streaming and neurodivergent (e.g. personally had to tweak my lighting because it was overstimulating me while I streamed)

Otherwise great panel!

Bridging the Gender Gap (13+)

Another great panel for encouraging diversity in the games industry - I appreciated the intersectionality of this one as well as the honest discussions about the ways in which things still need to be made *considerably* better throughout all corners of gaming. The panel also discusses actionable steps which could be taken to improve on these issues.

Surprised at myself for not having much to say about this one! I just think the panellists did a really good and succinct job at talking about the subject.

A Hunter's Dream: Bloodborne and Transness

I enjoyed this panel a whole lot - Having watched a playthrough of Bloodborne last year, hearing two trans women discussing the different trans allegories and interpretation of the characters and themes and lore of the game felt absolutely correct, even if it wasn't "canon".

If one was being pedantic one could call this the least polished of the panels I went to, but I honestly don't think that matters tremendously because both panellists were so utterly sincere about what they were covering that it carried the panel. You could easily tell just how much the subject matter meant to the two and it in turn meant a lot to me that they were willing to share it with a bunch of strangers as we were.

And then...

Um, Actually: The Panel

Hoooooo boy.

So remember earlier when I mentioned the irony of using Patreon DMs to grab an article about nonstandard parasocial interactions?

[ID: a meme image of Morpheus from the Matrix saying "What if I told you the guy I sent that article to is at a PAX East panel"]

So of course the panel for the Dropout show Um, Actually was being hosted by its two new presenters, Ify Nwadiwe and Brian David Gilbert:

Ify had been a wonderful host so far, and I really enjoy his work in general (especially his stint recently on Very Important People), so I was looking forward to meeting him.

...And then there's Brian, who has been streaming on Twitch for just under the past four years and who in that time has been subject to hundreds of my fun facts, insightful commentaries, and helpful actions (which he very much appreciated). That, alongside regularly taking part in Patreon livestreams, has led to a strange situation where I would not consider us friends, but we... don't not know each other? but we also don't know each other? Which is why the "one-and-a-half-sided" description in that article and the panel about parasocialness appealed to me (and why I sent the article to him too).

So of course when this panel got announced I wasn't gonna miss it. I really enjoyed what I've seen of Ify's hosting and Brian's fact-finding so far, and I wasn't gonna miss the chance to see the two chat about it - nor to potentially meet the guy who helped me raise £500 for ASAN last year.

But, turns out I wasn't the only one enthused by the panel, because it was Absolutely Rammed, like, an hour and a half before the panel started. I got lucky in that I managed to end up somewhere in the middle of the pack and got into the panel at all, but good grief did it remind me how I don't do well in crowds (even well-managed crowds, thank you PAX Enforcers xx).

It caused me to reflect a lot on the perceived casualness with which I interacted with Brian on Twitch versus the material reality of the level of interest from a LOT of people which he manages. It's the kind of thing which makes me wish to never become famous, because I don't know that I'd have it in me to manage that level of attention from everyone - even the very occasional instance of people recognising me online FROM Brian's streams and acting like it's a big deal always throws me off a bit (this has happened to me several times, I'm not even kidding!)

But then of course the Enforcers got us all in neatly and sweetly, and the panel was a delight! It was fun to hear Ify and Brian (and Jenna!!) talk about working on the show and the kinds of things they enjoyed putting in and what to expect next - such as another new season after the current one, as it deserves.

There was also a live session of Um, Actually questions which was at the time enjoyable, but since then numerous allegations of cheating and defamation have come to light against one of the participants, Gabe Hicks, and it is disheartening that something as grievous as this could have been going on that very weekend. I hope that justice and reparations can be made for the people affected by this, and I am going to move on out of courtesy to those involved.

After the panel, a meet-and-greet line formed for both Ify and Brian outside of the theatre and I was able to join it - it also felt important to me that I follow the proper procedures and not assume any privileges, since I know full well how that kind of thing can read and wanted to put my best foot forward, so to speak.

The play-by-play of our eventual meeting is as follows:

I greeted Ify first on purpose to let him know that he was doing a great job as the new Um, Actually host and I liked him in VIP

I then went to greet Brian, but at that point he had very blatantly already cottoned onto who I was and seemed very enthusiastic that I was there. I didn't feel any sense of star-struckedness, it was more like that sense of when you talk to someone online and then meet them in person - surreal, but not stressful.

Jenna took that moment to gently interrupt so she could rendezvous with the two men before the line ended - seemingly because of our vague familiarity and prior assumption of goodwill on our parts

I made sure to pass along some greetings from a few Discord servers formed around Brian's Twitch streams I was in, which Brian appreciated, and gave him a small gift which I brought with me - a small bottle of vivid iridescent nail polish (Ciaté London's "Forbidden Fruit", sadly out of production now), since nail painting and structural colour is somewhat of a shared interest of ours

Brian made sure to specifically compliment me on my shirt, to which I admitted the reason I wore it was because I knew Brian was the only person there who would appreciate it fully: it was from a game of Tee KO we played on Patreon at the end of 2022, which Brian won using a VERY existential t-shirt illustrated by myself:

(sidenote, after repeated success with these silly skeletons in subsequent games of Tee KO, I am very close to just selling my own legally-distinct skeleton shirt if I ever have a merch page)

Finally, I asked if we three could cap off the meeting with a video'd selfie, to which they graciously obliged me:

Having filmed what can only be described as a Cannes-worthy masterpiece, I said my goodbyes to them and made my way to the next panel...

The PAX Panel Show

...Which was just in the same theatre as the last panel, and with Jenna hosting and Brian on the panel. What a glorious event! I am so sad this one didn't get recorded - a truly deranged set of questions, including Portmantoad (guessing which video games have had their names spliced together based on the description of the resulting fusion), Ornstein and Sullivan (guessing whether a named character was from a Fromsoft game or from an opera), and a whole bunch of real-world questions about farming?? Joke's on all these city-slicker panellists, I grew up on a smallholding! So I was... actually no better at those farm questions than them. I can't tell you about industrial farming practices, but I can tell you how to hold a chicken! (gently, like a big hamburger).

After the panel, I approached Jenna one last time at the con and suggested that, given the inherent strangeness of our interactions (wherein we have become Twitch mutuals but still at best distant acquaintances) it would be funny if we took a selfie but made out like she was "the fan". She saw the funny side of it:

[ID: a tweet by Well-Spoken Rambler @wellspokentweet reading "Always a pleasure to meet a fan, @the_jenna", below which is a selfie featuring Well-Spoken Rambler and Jenna Stoeber. A reply from Jenna beneath this reads "HONORED TO MEET YOU, BIG FAN <3" in all-caps.]

Play What You Don't Know with DesiQuest

This was my last panel of PAX, and a bit of a last-minute wildcard! After relaying the above events to my good friend Hamish, he told me that his friend Omar would be doing a panel the following day, and that I should go and see it. And I am very glad I did!

It was really heartening to learn that a podcast like DesiQuest exists - a D&D actual play featuring an all-South-Asian cast and touching on the disparate cultures and themes that connect with them and their audience. As someone who is of Sri Lankan descent but without the cultural upbringing, it's something that appeals to me personally as another way to try and reconnect with that heritage. Definitely catching up on this one over the week!

I also got to say hi to Omar from Hamish, and it was a nice bonding moment cut short by my having to BOOK IT to a water taxi and conclude my time in Boston for good.

...

Phew!

Well, thanks for reading all of that if you did! It was a weekend that was at once fun, interesting, and thought-provoking. I still don't consider myself someone who seeks out big events, but being much more free and able to take part in those kinds of things now is super refreshing and I hope at some point (though not in the immediate future, boy was that expensive) I will be able to go again! Or at least do other events like that. Possibly something a bit quieter, but conventions don't usually run in flavours of "quiet", haha. Perhaps next time I'll bring business cards to recklessly self-promote better with.

See you around!

-Rambler

[variousqueerthings]

My granny used to put things on tumblr

It's! The Infamous! Kill The Moon! otherwise known here as the pro-life Doctor Who episode. so that's... something that was on my mind while watching. To be honest, I don't think I'd go that far, I think it was mainly politically completely unsure of what point it was trying to make at all

but yes, it makes the suggestion that Tumblr is not only around but a hit with the teenagers in the year of 2049, which is actually its best and funniest statement

sexism rank objectification (female character is ogled/harassed/turned into a sex joke by the doctor and/or a lead we’re supposed to root for and/or the camera): 8/10

sexism rank plot-point (lead female character is only there to serve plot, not to have her emotional interiority explored, or given agency to her emotional interiority): 8/10

interesting complex or pointlessly complex (does the complexity serve the narrative or does it just serve to be confusing as a stand-in for smart, this includes visually and philosophically and emotionally): 3/10

furthers character and/or lore and/or plot development (broader question that ties into the previous ones, at least two of these, ideally three should be fulfilled): 7/10

companion matters (the companion doesn’t always have to be there, but if the companion is there, can they function without the doctor– and overall per season how often is the companion the focus or POV of the story): 5/10

the doctor is more than just “godlike” (examines the doctor’s flaws and limitations, doesn’t solve a plot by having it revolve entirely around the doctor’s existence): 4/10

doesn’t look down on previous doctor who (by erasing or mocking its importance, by redoing and “bettering” previous beloved plotpoints or characters, etc.): 4/10

isn’t trying to insert hamfisted sexiness (m*ffat famously talked a lot about how dw should be sexier multiple times, he sucks at writing it): 10/10

internal world has consistency (characters have backgrounds, feel rooted in a place with other people, generally feel like they have Lives): 3/10

Politics (how conservative is the story): 2/10

FULL RATING: 54/100 (if I can count….)

this episode.........

OBJECTIFICATION: we brought back fan-favourite ORANGE SPACESUIT (orange spacesuit my beloved). Actually genuinely, hi bby I miss you every time I don't see you. It's been in this season twice for some reason

apart from Clara, we also have Courtney the teenager, and um... science space lady whom I recognise from back when I watched all of Spooks just to get to Richard Armitage in s7 of that. but enough about MI6 propaganda, this is um... Moon Propaganda? listen, I know exactly why it's called the Pro-life episode, and technically that is its worst implication with what it's doing, but I think there's so much else we can tear it to pieces for

however, objectification of its female characters is, blissfully, not one of them

PLOT-POINT: so as of time of beginning this sentence, I've rated this one quite highly, because it's all about Clara's trust and faith in the Doctor being shaken, when he treats her badly just one fucking time too many

I'm unsure if it'll continue being highly rated, because unfortunately the way the episode went about all of it was sooooooooo "forcing something into the correct shaped hole in order to make this exact point and so as consequence I feel like Clara almost suffers as a character, rather than grows"

but this may be an issue to come at in other points. Technically it fulfills this remit!

COMPLEXITY: moon's an egg. [gets a nuclear bomb]. moon's an egg.

oh boy oh boy does it try to do something emotionally complex with this one, but really all it's about is that ostensibly all of humanity is wrong for being worried about a Thing Happening that they've had exactly no knowledge of since like. less than an hour before they have to make a decision, and even then have barely any info on

seriously, listening to Clara's speech, I was wondering if I was on earth, how would I react to that? Ok so wait, moon's an egg- oh it's hatching, right now? and we want to blow it up to... turn it back into the moon? BBC science advisors what do you make of this, oh hallowed of totally unbiased news? doesn't the moon doing all of this mean the earth is fucked either way, I mean... something with tides right? ahhh we have vote by turning off the ligh- well the council roadworks shorted out the building again mate, so idk. guess I'll die. or the moon dies. or we both die? do I have enough mobile data to check in with this one?

so wait, if the moon's an egg- [episode ends]

they should not have involved the whole earth in this one for starters. secondly the Doctor leaving is bonkers yonkers. thirdly the scifi bullshit is streeeeetched thin. sooooo thin in this one. fourthly Science Lady with the nukes, I don't understand your motivations very well beyond Space Scary so this might be scary also. fifthly Clara being in the middle of something that makes so little sense, means that I'm having to engage with her emotions about something that makes no sense, so how can I take her arc seriously? this is ostensibly a Clara-centric episode that has her reevaluate her whole feelings about the Doctor based on being warned about Red Flags numerous times, but the science fiction underlying concept is "would you kill this unborn child if it would save billions of people" to which the answer is... yes?

(aaaand we come around to the pro-life vibes of the plot eyyyy we got there)

but mainly "would you kill this unborn child if it would save billions of people" is then peppered with so many "uhhh ignore this logic flaw" moments that I can't get into the actual ostensible philosophical point it's trying to make, because not only is it a bad point, it's also made badly -- it's not "would you kill this unborn child to save billions," it's "this hypothetical child is the moon, and whether or not you kill it doesn't matter, because the earth is gonna be without a moon either way, so you're basically fucked might as well let it live" or even (as it turns out to be) "this unborn child is the moon in a system that deliberately makes sense to allow earth to continue, so there's no real stakes here actually"

ironically M*ffat-era did this better in s5ep2 with The Beast Below, and there was more to it than "just" people kinda suck. like yeah, that episode struuuuggled with justifying its political structure, but its central philosophical ideas are quite interesting and Amy's journey in that is about growing and changing and seeing

Kill The Moon has such a simple premise that you can't see anything but the question it's asking and the more you look at it the more you go... "wait, what?"

CHARACTERS/LORE/PLOT: this is the episode where Clara finally goes, "hey fuck you!" at the Doctor and yeah, it better be, however I have so many questions about what the heck the Doctor is doing in it

a. leaving Clara behind just to see what she'll do b. "lol if the child that crucially I am the only own who knows doesn't have to die dies, then that's a learning opportunity for... someone" c. this episode starts because the Doctor told a clearly-struggling teenage girl that she "wasn't special." not onscreen or anything, just at some point, just cos -- I have been reminded several times (by others and also by myself) that Ten could be quite unthinking at times, and this is true. it brings to mind when Ten says to Donna that she's not important, but the context there is that Ten sometimes says/does things without thinking and in this instance, crucially, is having a bit of a rough time, and then spends the rest of their time together basically apologising for his own words. now not that this is a "competition," they're not real etcetc. but Twelve is. A Dick. To Everyone. and that is kind of just... there. I am waiting for something to happen with that, I am seeing where this is going, but seeing as I brought up Eleven and The Beast Below a second ago, "you couldn't bear to watch a child cry" is one of the most interesting things about that character, and other Doctors bear this out too. they are -- for the most part -- not massive dicks to kids

Twelve has a line in this where after Clara rebukes him for being a bastard to the kid for the whole episode, goes "she’s fine, what are you 35?" (Courtney then replies, "15")

it's fascinating that this Doctor not only doesn't like people, this Doctor doesn't even see people

and Clara is now reacting to this at last by going, hey buddy, fuck you

but I am definitely reaching a point where I hope all of this makes some sense, because oh boy is the Doctor just not likeable, and the more that is stretched out, the less fun I have watching these episodes, especially when it feels like it's being leaned on for comedy

COMPANIONS MATTER: I have feelings about M*ffat having a couple of episodes where some kids that Clara knows are brought on a space adventure, and those feelings are... it was bad

I think the actress who plays Courtney is better than the two kids in Nightmare In Silver, but she is -- like them -- such a badly written teen, do you not know how 15 year olds speak? what is the purpose of having kids in these stories, if you're not telling a story for that age group? "Hey, you too could fly on the Tardis and have an adventure and do something incredible," but instead it's "hey you too could... tag along, get bored, sit on your phone, make stupid comments, and be ragged on by adults the entire time"

I will give Courtney is 100% going "uh let's not kill this creature" the whole time (weirder vibes with the pro-life undertones, fine if you just consider that like... it doesn't make sense to kill it anyway, because once again, have to say, the scifi is so bullshit as to be unintelligible)

meanwhile Clara asks the earth for advice, decides not to kill the moon against earth's advice and everything is fine and dandy (no consequences within the actual episode, because it's really just a backdrop on which to cause Doctor and Clara Drama), it's... the more you think about it, the less she has to do in this episode, other than to emote (understandably) at the Wildness of the Doctor just deciding to leave her alone, just... because.....

but yeah, technically none of them need to be there. even Science Lady is barely an antagonist

“GODLIKE” DOCTOR: HE'S A DICK WITH A TIME MACHINE WHO DECIDES TO PLAY 5D CHESS FOR NO REASON FUCKYOU MATE

PREVIOUS DOCTOR WHO: HE'S A DICK WITH A TIME MACHINE WHO DECIDES TO PLAY 5D CHESS FOR NO REASON FUCKYOU MATE <- this was the previous point also, and I think that may be unfair to call "totally against every way the character has been written thus far," but then again.... is it?

we've had Machiavellian Doctor. we've had Doctor makes decisions for others, because they don't trust people with their own agency (literally from the beginning). we've even had Doctor who tries to unwrite a fixed point in time because of being mad with grief

we've had many flavours of this kind of Doctor. but have we had a Doctor who just... leaves.... because fuck this noise. not leaves out of defeat. not leaves out of disgust with people. not leaves because of idk, exhaustion. leaves because "hey why not let you deal with this one, even though I have all of the information to defuse the situation instantly, but I just don't like anything anymore"

there's some grains of something that could be interesting there -- and even is interesting in other episodes of this season, but maaan do I feel like they gambled on how far they could push things with this episode, but failed to make anything in it compelling, and so the Doctor comes out the other side an incomprehensible asshole

there are fun references to classic who in this episode, but at least one of them feels bastardised (the earth isn't my home) in order to justify the Doctor simply not caring anymore. it's like the inverse journey of Nine, but an endless endless slog

boy oh boy does this season/era have a lot of legwork to do to make me care

“SEXINESS”: I guess at least this is fine?

INTERNAL WORLD: *I wish I could take a massive swig of wine but I do not drink. sips tea with disgust instead* the moon is an egg could be fun. it is not. political situation on earth that merits earth being involved in this episode? nah none of that

Tumblr is still around though. should I vote it one down or up for that assumption?

POLITICS: ohhhhkay we've covered this I feel, in all the other points, but to summarise: it's so incomprehensible, with a dash of I think definitely unintentional pro-life stuff going on, but mainly just there to justify the Doctor's continued bleak, cynical, utter lack of faith in humanity As A Statement

sure there's a breadcrumb at the end of "and now I guess you'll get better" but it's just... it's like you know how Rise Of The Guardians has this whole Thing where children stop believing except for this one persistent light that won't get snuffed out, and so the Guardians all gather around that light as a way to regain their powers and protect the children

this episode doesn't even have one persistent light, never mind a coherent political statement. I think the one persistent light was meant to be Courtney, but it failed so hard at having purpose on any fronts that of course she was barely needed in it either

we also get an added nugget of Danny as he uses his experiences in the army to mirror Clara's experience with the Doctor (which, even that is just... bleak as hell comparison to make here)

Danny: I left the army Clara: You loved the army Danny: Yep. And then one day I didn’t

seriously hope we get something more in-depth about Danny versus the military industrial complex at some point -- I mean, orphan who found structure in a system, the violence of which eventually drove him out? that's interesting. Potentially

FULL RATING: 54/100 (if I can count….)

this episode should not be rated this highly, but its crimes do not extend to literally treating its female characters as garbage for being women, although I do have some questions about Courtney as a Black teen who's told she isn't special as what sounds like a casual aside and acts out as the setup for this episode to happen in the first place

at least we hear she does well at the end of the episode, but urgh, why is she there for this story, when so much of it is pointless, her being there is just as pointless as the rest of it

at the end of it, we are left to question: okay but does the Doctor's character regression at least get better after this?

and what is Clara's whole... deal (at least that, I think, is answered at the end of the next one)